by Bo Lidegaard
The most recent figures show that a total of 7,742 Jews fled from Denmark to Sweden because of the German action. In addition, 686 non-Jews went into exile with their Jewish familes. Some 1,376 of those who fled were German refugees, including stateless Jews. After the war 348 of the stateless chose to remain in Sweden. The young Danish historian Sofie Lene Bak, who has researched the refugees’ fate extensively, concludes: “The Danish government care included all who were deported from Danish soil, and the Danish legation in Sweden decided that anyone who had fled from Denmark to Sweden, regardless of nationality, was covered by the official refugee assistance.”4
Support for all, whether they were Danish or not, gave the non-Danish Jewish refugees who had come to Sweden via Denmark hope and a belief in a future in Denmark. After the war it turned out that for many of those concerned, these aspirations were not fully realized. In 1945 Denmark resumed its restrictive refugee policy in regard to the stateless who had escaped to the country in the lead-up to the war. This policy was maintained until March 1946, when it was slightly relaxed by providing them with one-year residence and work permits. Gradually the stateless were able to apply for Danish citizenship when they had resided in Denmark for fifteen years, and the last of those who had escaped via Denmark to Sweden in October 1943 and had returned after Denmark’s liberation got their citizenship in 1974.5
The culmination of the mass flight from Denmark on the weekend of October 7–9 gave rise to questions in regard to the Germans’ strategy. While the Swedish press during the previous days had overflowed with dramatic stories of the Germans’ attempt to stem the flight, the Sunday edition of Dagens Nyheter featured a much more sober assessment based on Saturday’s impressions along the Øresund coastline. The headline establishes the puzzling fact that the dramatic increase in the number of refugees had to be happening with “the Good Will of the Germans.” The newspaper estimated fairly accurately that about five thousand Danish refugees had arrived in the past week, which was possible only if the Danish police were assisting in the escape and the occupation forces turning a blind eye to it. But how was this possible? The question was raised, but it has taken seventy years of debate and research to provide the answers.
Reality on the Water
As early as 1942 the German minister to Copenhagen, Werner Best’s predecessor, the career diplomat Renthe-Fink, gave Berlin a sobering lesson in the coastal geography of Denmark, a nightmare for anyone aiming to control maritime traffic: “Because of Denmark’s very long coastline, which in some places is only four kilometers from the Swedish coast, illegal border traffic can be kept under control only with the greatest difficulty. Effective blockage is technically not possible. At best the goal can be to reduce the element of risk as much as possible by the application of every conceivable measure. This work is done by Danish police and the German navy in close and good cooperation.”6
That was an optimistic interpretation. And since 1942 the conditions had deteriorated to the point of complete collapse only after August 29, 1943, when the cooperation between the German and Danish navies was discontinued, and the efforts of the Danish coastal police significantly hampered. The German navy’s main tasks in this sector were the securing of Danish waters and the German lines of transport to Norway, with the vital provisions of iron ore to Germany; they also had to see to it that Allied units did not penetrate into the Baltic. Those tasks of high strategic importance were supplemented by coast guard minesweeping, which until August 29 was carried out by the Danish navy in cooperation with the Danish coastal police. With martial law and internment of Danish military personnel, this cooperation broke down altogether, and even though in September the Germans made several attempts to restore it, this was not possible as long as the state of emergency lasted.
On September 6 the Germans had a mere six Danish coast guard cutters stationed in the port of Helsingør. These were provisionally manned by German sailors transferred from a minesweeper. On September 30 the punctilious German admiral stated that this patrolling would be suspended in the near future because the crew was going back to the minesweeper. The following day, October 1, it was announced from Helsingør that patrols by the Danish cutters had ceased. The primary military coast guard, in other words, ended its patrols the same day that the German action was put into effect. They were not resumed until early November. The result was that not one of the some seven hundred illegal transports across the Sound following the action against the Danish Jews was intercepted by German patrols.7
G. F. Duckwitz, in a postwar report, declared that the German port commander in Copenhagen, at his request, made sure that the German navy ships were in dry dock during the crucial days in October—adding yet another myth to the history of the rescue. No contemporary sources support his assertion. But even if it was so, guarding the coast was not the German navy’s task. It was a task for the six Danish coast guard cutters, which were fully operational and subject to the authority of the German port commander in Helsingør. The problem was that in October there were no personnel to man the six cutters.8
This did not mean, however, that there were no German patrol boats on the Sound. On the contrary we have reports from the Swedish coastal monitoring service’s observations of the German navy’s movements in the Sound during the critical days of October. For example, on October 4, two days after Poul Hannover stared blindly into the Baltic dark, a large number of German patrol vessels were observed, although it was difficult to establish whether it was about five, ten, or fifteen. A number of other sources also support the assertion that the Germans patrolled very intensely. But none of these patrols was tasked with overseeing civilian traffic, let alone with an attempt to stem the flood of refugees. Their tasks were military in relation to hostile operations in Danish waters and entry to the Baltic, and the German squads were probably barely aware of and certainly not interested in the drama that was playing out on the Sound right through their lines. In a laconic reference found in the war diary of the German Naval War Command for the second of October 1943, it is noted that the Jewish action in Denmark the previous night had failed, because the Jews had been warned and the majority of the six thousand Jews had gone into hiding. A mass exodus to Sweden was now in progress, it says, without a hint that the navy had received—let alone was eager to receive—orders to stop it.
The impression that the German patrols were passive bystanders during the escape is also confirmed by later reports from the skippers on the boats that crossed. Thus skipper Aksel Sørensen reports that during a voyage with a cargo full of refugees they met a German patrol boat in the open water. There was nothing to do but to stay the course. The two vessels sailed right past each other, with only customary greetings exchanged.9
The night when the action took place, the police leadership, as mentioned, ordered that Danish policemen should not participate in the arrests of Jews. This order also applied to what was left of the coastal police force. Through informal channels another instruction followed not to arrest Jews during attempts at illegal exit—although the coastal police’s main task was precisely to prevent illegal exit. A recent thorough study of the many reports from countless refugees finds that the Danish coastal police did not cooperate in the deportation of Jewish refugees. In October the Jews were freely allowed to travel to Sweden, apart from a few tragic cases where coastal police, because of an accident or the many refugees in the ports, could not avoid assisting with German arrests. The situations could be hard to cope with out in the more than seventy fishing ports, as virtually all were guarded by officers from the coastal police, one of whom in November noted: “From the Jews’ side there was a complete lack of understanding of the situation, as they showed up at ports in large numbers carrying large amounts of luggage.”
Adapted from: Kreth and Mogensen, Flugten til Sverige (1995).
Nevertheless the study found that the coastal police not only closed their eyes but in many cases directly helped and assisted the fugitives, as is also doc
umented in Gilleleje. From the Copenhagen area, where more than one hundred men and three boats from the coastal police controlled traffic between Tuborg Harbor and South Harbor, between two and three thousand refugees shipped out during the first two weeks of October. Not one was arrested by the police. The Germans could, of course, smell a rat, and there are instances when coastal police officers were subjected to searching questions and threats. But what could be done? The problem went, as a Gestapo man remarked to a Danish helper, right up to the top police officials in Copenhagen.10
The attitude of the police authorities is also reflected in the handling of a case from Gilleleje, where a coastal officer serving during the days when Dr. Meyer and his sister-in-law were in town, was caught pocketing some of the refugees’ money. The officer was dismissed and brought to justice. The indictment, dated December 1, 1943, charges the officer “while working for the coastal police in Gilleleje to have helped the Jews’ illegal departure from the country and for this involvement having received a total of 2,800 kroner, which he kept, and an amount of 4,500 kroner, which he distributed to 9 reserve officers.”
The officer was sentenced to three months in prison—not for helping Jews to escape but for having taken money for it. What’s more, the prosecution appealed the case, requesting increased punishment. The Supreme Court, however, upheld the judgment—and thus also the clear decision by the legal system that the offense lay not in helping the refugees but in taking payment for it.11
The Money
Did the Danish Jews pay exorbitant prices for transport to Sweden? The question has haunted the debate about the rescue since the dramatic October days, and already at the time many sarcastic remarks were heard about fishermen’s earnings, as the quoted diaries also reflect.
As a predominant rule helpers on land were not paid. On the other hand, the fishermen and others who sailed larger and smaller groups over were paid. As is already apparent from the cited reports, prices varied greatly and there were far from transparent fixed rates. But gradually, as the helpers’ network organized the routes, there was also increasing control over payments, so the worst fluctuations were avoided. Yet there is no doubt that among the fishermen there were some who exploited the situation, just as it is equally clear that there were more who acted without regard to personal gain. Some refugees had to pay unreasonably high prices, but no one was left behind because they could not—or would not—pay.
Over the years numerous attempts have been made to calculate payments in relation to today’s prices and wages. Such comparisons are difficult. It gives an impression of scale that a fisherman on a single successful transport could earn enough for a new boat, or more—and many fishermen sailed many of these tours. Conversely, as a previously cited story shows, there are examples of a skipper who, after just a single crossing, did not dare sail back and thus had to spend the rest of the war in Sweden.
It is estimated that the average price for a ticket was around one thousand kroner per person. That was around one-third or one-fourth of the annual salary of a skilled worker, and almost half the refugees belonged socially to the working class. Studies of the payments from Gilleleje suggest that there was some correlation between supply and demand. In September, when only a few refugees sought passage, and at the end of October, when the number of refugees had dropped significantly, prices were lower than when the large influx characterized the town in the first weeks of October. While the price in September appears to have been below one thousand kroner, it rose during the first two weeks in October to between one thousand and two thousand, whereafter it dropped to about five hundred kroner. It was especially at this late stage that the poorest Jews fled, and in many cases groups of helpers had saved money so they could ensure that all came over.12
The contemporaneous reports quoted here are very direct about the payments. But they do not reflect that the fugitives felt blackmailed or cheated when they dealt with those who actually sailed or organized the crossings. They had another fear, namely of falling into the hands of charlatans who would trick the refugees out of their money without delivering the crossing. It is equally striking that none of the fugitives who wrote close to the action was in doubt that both they and their helpers were being hunted. Today we know that the risk was minimal—especially when the refugees were on board and on the way to Sweden. But that was neither the fishermen’s nor the refugees’ perception at the time. And it is characteristic that, despite the large amounts of money involved, throughout the period it was difficult to find skippers who were willing to sail at all.13
Fishermen put not just their boats but their lives at risk and most asked a solid payment, especially from the most wealthy refugees. Most of the fugitives do not seem to have felt exploited or extorted. For the majority two things seem to have been crucial: that they and their relatives come over, and that no one be left behind because they could not afford the crossing. Several factors contributed to achieving the last goal. Had the fishermen sailed only for money, we would find reports of people without means who didn’t come over. But we do not find any. Ultimately the helpers simply insisted that no one be left behind. It was a matter of individual conscience and national honor. It was strongly felt that ultimately anyone who had to flee to Sweden be granted the opportunity.
It has been argued that the issue of the money, and the fact that Danish fishermen gained large sums on the transits in October 1943, has been a taboo subject in the myths surrounding the rescue of the Danish Jews. Much to the contrary, this aspect is an integral part of the history and is seldom left out in the numerous accounts of the events. At the same time, few of those returning to Denmark after the war raised the issue. It was obviously not an issue for the rich nor for those less fortunate who had been supported by the authorities during their exile. Also, a special compensation arrangement was adopted in Denmark after the war for damage caused by the Nazis. This arrangement also provided compensation to Jews who escaped to Sweden.14
The need for money was huge in the help groups, which sprouted everywhere, and many were extremely creative when it came to obtaining large amounts of cash. It was far from the case that only the fugitives themselves donated. One group carried out a successful collection tour at Sjælland estates. Others sought to raise large amounts through regular credit. After the war Supreme Court lawyer H. H. Bruun, who just before the action was hurriedly given the responsibility for the Jewish community’s property and assets, provided a vivid description of how he administered the 11 million kroner involved. For Bruun it was crucial that no involvement in any illegal activity could give the Germans a pretext to confiscate Jewish assets. On the other hand, he felt it appropriate to use some of the funds to “help the many needy Jews with the expensive trip to Sweden.” The way out was to take out a loan of 250,000 kroner from a known shipowner against the security of the community’s assets. The loan could then be used to fund the illegal exits.
Bruun also mentions an episode that reflects the ambiguous conditions in Denmark in the weeks following the action. A few days after the operation the concierge of the community building in New Kongensgade phoned and said that two Germans and two Danes had arrived and stolen a number of books, including a very rare and valuable Talmud. After having slept on the matter, Bruun chose to report the theft in writing to the police commissioner, who a few hours later phoned and asked if the barrister “was mad and did not know that the Germans had the power in the country?” Bruun replied, according to his own report, that he “thought the police director still had the task of maintaining law and order within his official area,” and “insisted that the notification was forwarded to the Germans”: “It happened, and 8 days later the concierge phoned again: All the books, including the edition of the Talmud, were handed to him by two unknown men—not the police—and the same night everything was moved over to the Royal Library, with whose leadership I had previously made an agreement.”
Bruun added that he was delighted when the war was over, “to su
rrender all possessions to the community in undamaged condition, plus assets increased by a not inconsiderable amount thanks to current interest rates.”15
The Blind Eye
While in practice it was difficult for the Germans, without Danish assistance, to stem the flight by sea, there were much larger German forces in the country. The interesting question is whether their inaction, already noted by contemporary commentators, was due to politically imposed restraint by the German authorities, more or less explicitly encouraged by Werner Best?
Surely the problem was not lack of manpower. In addition to Danish police the occupying power possessed its own security police, uniformed police, and Wehrmacht soldiers. It was the security police who had primary responsibility for the action against the Jews. As noted, there was no cordial relationship between the German forces and their respective commands, and neither the Wehrmacht nor the uniformed police, who had thirteen to fourteen hundred officers under them, showed any eagerness to help the security police search for the Danish Jews. A certain practical assistance was granted in connection with the action as such and subsequently in a number of specific cases, but in general both the Wehrmacht and the policemen dragged their feet. If a blind eye could be turned toward the fugitives, this as a rule was done, and we have numerous reports of trains and ports filled with fleeing families who were ignored by passing German soldiers and police. Herbert Levysohn’s quoted note about the German “clodhoppers” also bears witness to this.
Of course no guarantees were given, and there were exceptions with the direst consequences. Refugees were caught, and some were shot. But overwhelmingly the German police and the Wehrmacht turned their backs—first and foremost because each was dependent on further cooperation with the Danish authorities. Their lack of enthusiasm was due neither to a lack of manpower nor to a matter of capacity. It was due to a lack of will.