Transcript Holocaust_the Denmark

THE HOLOCAUST
&
THE DANISH RESISTANCE
"Holocaust" is a word of
Greek origin meaning
"sacrifice by fire."
The Holocaust
represents 11 million lives that abruptly ended,
the extermination of people not for who they
were but for what they were.
Groups such as handicaps, Gypsies, Slavs,
Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, Poles, Soviet
prisoners of war, political rebels and others
were persecuted by the Nazis.
•Adolf Hitler seized power, January 30, 1933. Preaches that Germans,
the Aryan race, were the “Superior Race”
•Warns against “inferior” races and groups such as Jews, Slavs, Poles,
handicapped, & the mentally challenged
•In April 1933, Jews were banished from government jobs, a quota
was established banning Jews from universities, and a boycott of
Jewish shops enacted.
•In 1935, the infamous Nuremberg Laws were passed. These classed
Jews as German "subjects" instead of citizens. Intermarriage was
outlawed, more professions were closed to Jews, shops displayed signs
reading, "No Jews Allowed." Harassment was common. Jews also
forced to wear the yellow Star of David.
•October 1938. Polish Jews were herded like cattle and dumped
at the Polish border, where the Poles kept them in no-man's
land. One deported family wrote to their son who was studying
in Paris. When he heard of the torments his parents went
through, he decided to get even and shot a German official
stationed in Paris.
•This small rebellion was a perfect opportunity for Adolf Hitler
and his henchmen to rise up. The Nazis called for
demonstrations, and violence erupted across Germany for two
days. Stores were destroyed, synagogues burned, and twenty
thousand Jews arrested.
•The riots came to be known as Kristallnacht - the Night of
Glass, for all the broken glass.
•This was the first widespread violence towards Jews
A synagogue burns in Siegen, Germany, on November 10,
1938 (Kristallnacht)
The Night of Glass, for all the broken glass.
•September 1, 1939-Hitler invades Poland
•Eventually takes France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Holland,
Croatia, Slovakia, & Romania
•Concentration camps were set up after 1933 to detain without
legal procedure Jews, Communists, Gypsies, prisoners of war, and
others.
•Extermination, or Death, camps were established for the sole
purpose of killing men, women, and children.
•Germany occupied Denmark on April 9, 1940. However,
Danish Jews were not persecuted until the fall of 1943.
•In mid September 1941 Hitler ordered the beginning of mass
deportations from Germany to ghettos in Eastern Europe.
Nazi Concentration and Death Camps
Germany occupied
Denmark on
April 9, 1940.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?ModuleId=10005209
To hear the personal
Story of a Jewish Dane ‘s
recollection of the
invasion of Denmark,
click on the above site.
You will then need to
scroll down.
•Because they were a small country, the Danes
surrender after a few hours of fighting and very few
casualties
•Resistance begins almost immediately
•Germany allows the Danes to continue to govern
itself as long as it meets their demands
•Danes lose control of government in August 1943
•The Freedom Council secretly organizes to lead
resistance movement
•Resistance groups blow up factories and
transportation facilities
•Information is spread through secret newspaper
•Jews are assisted and protected in an attempt to
escape the Nazis in Denmark
Unlike Jews in other countries
under Nazi rule, the Jews of
Denmark were never forced to
wear the yellow Star of David or
any other identifying badge.
When the German police
began searching for and
arresting Jews on the night of
October 1, 1943, the Danish
police refused to cooperate.
Approximately 500 Jews were deported from
Denmark to the Theresienstadt ghetto in
Czechoslovakia. Following protests from their
government, these Danish inmates were allowed to
receive letters and even some care packages.
Most of them survived the Holocaust.
German presence in Copenhagen, Denmark
King Christian X of Denmark
King of
Denmark
1912 - 1947
According to popular legend, King Christian X chose to wear a
yellow star in support of the Danish Jews during the Nazi
occupation of Denmark. In another version, the Danish people
decided to wear a yellow star for the same reason. Both of
these stories are fictional. In fact, unlike Jews in other
countries under Nazi rule, the Jews of Denmark were never
forced to wear an identification mark such as a yellow star.
However, the legend conveys an important historical truth:
both the King and the Danish people stood by their Jewish
citizens and were instrumental in saving the overwhelming
majority of them from Nazi persecution and death.
1938-1939 Portrait of a preschool class in
Copenhagen, Denmark.
Danish fishermen ferry Jews across a narrow sound to
safety in neutral Sweden during the German
occupation of Denmark. Sweden, 1943.
Group portrait of Danish-Jewish children living in a
Swedish children´s home, after their escape from
Denmark. 1943-44.
Danish fishermen used this boat to carry Jews to
safety in Sweden during the German occupation.
Denmark, 1943 or 1944.
Danish refugees register in Sweden after escaping from Denmark. Sweden,
after October 1943.
Jewish
refugees
from
Denmark
upon arrival
in neutral
Sweden.
1943.
Jewish refugees are ferried out of
Denmark aboard fishing boats bound
for Sweden. October 1943.
The Danish Freedom Council, Denmark's unofficial governmentin-exile from July 1944 to May 1945, was made up of leaders of
the four main resistance groups. London, Great Britain, between
July 1944 and May 1945.
This boat, named "Sunshine" (formerly "Lurifax"), was used
during World War II to transport Danish refugees from Germanoccupied Denmark to neutral Sweden.
This fall marks the 80th anniversary of the rescue of
the Jews of Denmark. The Danish resistance
movement, assisted by many ordinary citizens,
coordinated the flight of some 7,200 Jews to safety
in nearby neutral Sweden.
Thanks to this remarkable mass rescue effort, at war's
end Denmark had one of the highest Jewish survival
rates for any European country.
Prewar photograph of three
Jewish children with their
babysitter. Two of the children
perished in 1942. Warsaw,
Poland, 1925-1926.
May 10, 1933 - An event unseen since the Middle Ages occurs as German
students from universities formerly regarded as among the finest in the world,
gather in Berlin and other German cities to burn books with "unGerman" ideas.
Books by Freud, Einstein, Thomas Mann, Jack London, H.G. Wells and many
others go up in flames as they give the Nazi salute.
A hundred years earlier, the German-Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, had stated,
"Where books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too."
Brothers who perished in a Nazi death camp.
Six-year old Anna Klein
and three-year old
brother Jon. Both were
sent to a death camp,
Auschwitz, where they
were killed.
A group portrait of a children's home, a place of refuge for children who had
come to France to escape Nazi persecution. The home was raided on April 6,
1944. Of the 51 persons arrested, 44 were children.
The entire group was sent to a concentration camp. Only one survived.
Polish boys imprisoned in Auschwitz look out from behind the
barbed wire fence. Approximately 40,000 Polish children were
kidnapped and imprisoned in the camp before being transferred to
Germany. The children were used as slave laborers in Germany.
Most did not survived the Holocaust.
A mound of victims' shoes found in the
Majdanek concentration camp after the
liberation.
Concentration camp survivors cheer the soldiers of the Eleventh Armored Division
of the U.S. Third Army one day after the camp's liberation.
Young survivors
behind a barbed
wire fence in the
death camp
Buchenwald.
American soldiers escort children survivors of Buchenwald out of the
main gate of the camp. Among the children pictured is future Nobel
Peace Prize winner Eli Wiesel (fourth child in the left column).