80th anniversary of the unique rescue operations to save the vast majority of Denmark’s Jewish families from deportation to German concentration and extermination camps.

During the nights of early October 1943, Danish fishermen filled their boats with the vast majority of Danish-Jewish families and Jewish refugees from Germany, taking them to safety from occupied Denmark by crossing the Baltic Sea to Sweden. In this way they rescued 7,220 of the 7,800 Danish Jews from their terrible fear of the German occupiers and the already existing orders for deportation to German concentration and extermination camps.

It was the German diplomat Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz who, at the end of September 1943, informed Danish resistance circles about the immediately approaching date for the arrest of the Danish Jews. As a result a large majority of the Danish population from all walks of life spontaneously joined forces in resistance and support operations to help the Jewish families. Duckwitz had already informed the Swedish government about the envisaged rescue efforts, and they had agreed to take in the Jewish refugees as they arrived on the Swedish coast.

In Berlin Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, marked the 80th anniversary of these unique rescue operations as follows:

"Despite war and terror, people overcame their fear and complacency. They rushed to help their Jewish neighbours who were threatened with imminent death and brought them to safety. For survivors of the Holocaust, the rescue of the Danish Jews is an indelible and eternally valid sign of resistance and humanity. It is indestructible and should give us food for thought, especially in these days and times."