Denmark Marks 70th Anniversary of Jewish Escape From Nazis
Righteous Rescue: A Jewish family lands in Sweden after escaping from Denmark as Nazis prepared crackdown in 1943. Image by courtesy of museum of danish resistance
A ceremony held in a Copenhagen synagogue marked the 70th anniversary of the rescue of most of Denmark’s Jews from the hands of the Nazis.
Sunday’s ceremony marked the October 1943 operation in which more than 7,000 Jews were sent by boat to Sweden after they were ordered deported to Nazi concentration camps, the Associated Press reported.
A German official who knew about the deportation orders told Danish lawmakers, who passed the information to Danish Jewish leaders.
The nearly 500 sick and elderly Danish Jews who did not escape were deported to a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.
On Tuesday night, the Öresund Bridge linking Copenhagen and Malmö will be lit up with 700 lanterns in commemoration of the Jews’ escape from Denmark to Sweden, The Local. se reported.
The Elisabeth K571, one of the few boats that are still in existence from the secret evacuation, reportedly will take part in the memorial activities, according to The Local.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
