Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

The Bridge Over the Oresund: The Historiography of the Expulsion of the Jews From Nazi-Occupied Denmark, by Gunnar S. Paulsson. 1995. JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY 30(3)431-464.

Danes and Poles. Contrary to Holocaust Lore, Danes Were Not Better Than Poles

This article touches on seldom-mentioned issues in the much-glorified Danish rescue of Jews. I focus on some items of lasting interest.

DANES AND POLES; THE WEAPONIZATION OF THE DANISH PRO-JEWISH ACTION OF OCTOBER 1943

Paulsson sees right through the heroic-Danes narrative and the way that it is used as a club, against other nations, by the Holocaust establishment. He writes, “…third, that the Danish case stands as an accusation against other nations, which could have done the same thing if they had only had, to cite the title of the collection from which the above passage is quoted, ‘The Courage to Care’. Such a view is by no means confined to the popular literature on the subject: similar themes have been raised by professional historians…” (p. 431. Emphasis in original.)

DANISH GOVERNMENT WAS NOT NECESSARILY SUPPORTIVE OF JEWS

There is the well-worn myth of Danish King Christian donning the Star in solidarity with the Jews. That never happened. If anything, the Danish government was not nearly as benign to Jews as we are led to believe. Paulson writes, “The principle of anti-Jewish discrimination was accepted by the Danish Prime Minister, Erik Scavenius, when he told his government on 7 November 1942 that he opposed the promotion of Jews or public appearances by them; under more severe pressure, he would presumably have agreed to more severe measures.” (p. 457).

THE “ENTIRE DANISH NATION RESCUED JEWS”–A LAUGH

There were about 4.5 million Danes. (p. 464). Bearing this in mind, Paulsson puts the Danish Jew-transfer operation in proper perspective, “Of course the ‘rescue’ operation would not have succeeded if a sufficient number of Danes had not played their part in it; but it is unlikely that the number of people directly involved was greater than 10,000, for the most part relatives or personal friends of the Jews and a few hundred members of the Danish underground. Such levels of support could be found everywhere in occupied Europe – even in anti-Semitic Warsaw where, according to Emanuel Ringelblum, 40-60,000 persons were involved in helping Jews, under far more arduous conditions than in Denmark.” (p. 458). Well said! The standard anti-Polish narrative falls apart right here.

Moreover, even if Paulsson is off by as much as a factor of 4, it still means that less than 1% of the Danish population actually was involved in the rescue of Jews! Yet nowadays Jews complain about “Holocaust distortion”. To say that the entire Danish nation rescued Jews is Holocaust distortion par excellence. But as long as it promotes the standard Judeocentric narrative, who cares?

DANES AND POLES?

Holocaust museums continue to promote the fairy tale of the Dane and the Jew. In addition, Poland is attacked in the media for “claiming too much credit” in rescuing Jews, and even for supposedly thinking that rescuing Jews was some kind of Polish national project. Recently, some Jews even declared that erecting a monument to Polish Jew-rescuers must not happen, because it might imply that Polish Jew-rescue was something typical. Oh, dear! Yet, at the same time, the Danes get unqualified glory. That is why Danish Jew-rescue iconoclasm remains a necessity.

We sometimes hear that there was less antisemitism in Poland than in Denmark, as if the Danes were a better people. It is easy to be positive about Jews when you are not affected by them. In Poland, Jews were 12% of the population, and in Denmark only 0.2%! See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2025/05/26/100000-fugitive-jews-outstanding-250000-a-hoax/

DANISH FEARS?? GERMAN OCCUPATION OF DENMARK ALMOST A JOKE

It is sometimes claimed that, even though it is now known that the Danes faced little danger in shipping the Jews to Sweden, they thought at the time that they faced danger in doing so. This is mind-reading with a vengeance. It is soundly contradicted by the almost-jocular nature of the German occupation that the Danes had been treated to for over the past three preceding years. Paulsson comments, “To this end, the Danes were allowed to keep their own government and political system, with multiple political parties, free elections, and a press that was subject only to normal wartime censorship.” (pp. 442-443).

NO SIGNIFICANT GERMAN ACTION AGAINST DANES WAS EVER TAKEN

The Danish effort on behalf of Jews lasted well over a month, giving Danes plenty of time to reflect and realize that any danger they faced was minimal. Author Paulsson comments, “Whatever fears the Danes may have entertained, in reality no Dane was executed, sent to a concentration camp, or long imprisoned for helping Jews: the few who were arrested by the German police were turned over to the Danish authorities, who generally allowed them to escape or made them pay small fines. Nor was any edict threatening punishment for such acts ever published.” (p. 434. Emphasis added).

THE GERMANS WERE NOT “AFRAID” OF THE PRESUMED DANISH SYMPATHY FOR JEWS

Paulsson affirms the fact of good Danish-Jewish relations but rejects the premise that this somehow constrained German conduct. In particular, claims are sometimes made that the Germans did not make a more decisive move against the Jews because they were afraid of the ferocious Danish reaction that would follow. This is nonsense. To begin with, the Germans were not afraid to invade Denmark in 1940, and furthermore experienced almost zero Danish resistance. So, why would they now suddenly be afraid of Danes when it came to the Jews?

The author concludes, “The Nazis, as we have seen, took Danish attitudes into account only for practical reasons, and permitted the Danes extraordinary leeway because it served German interests to do so.” (p. 458).

Any notion of the Danes resisting the upcoming German anti-Jewish move, by force, is pure speculation. Paulsson comments, “First, there is no evidence that the Germans expected a Danish revolt requiring large forces for its suppression, or that anyone in Denmark was planning one.” (p. 456).

THE GERMANS PLANNED THE RELOCATION (NOT EXTERMINATION) OF DANISH JEWS ALL ALONG

It is incorrect to think of the Danish operation an “aborted” or “failed” deportation. The outcome was intentional. Paulsson writes:

“The attempted deportation of the Danish Jews was thus essentially a charade, no doubt answering some devious political purpose but never seriously meant to succeed.” (p. 435).

“The hypothesis ought to be entertained, then, that what happened in Denmark that October was not that Hitler’s orders were sabotaged–by Duckwitz, Best or anyone else–but rather that they were, so to speak, interpreted creatively, with Himmler’s knowledge and approval, without compromising the final aim of making Denmark judenrein.” (p. 441). In other words, relocation replaced extermination as the goal. A completely different situation existed between Danes and Poles.

DANES AND POLES. NOT ENOUGH DANISH JEWS TO BE WORTH GOING AFTER

Paulsson makes this eye-opening comment, “If Denmark had had 30,000 Jews instead of 8,000, it would have figured more prominently in Nazi plans, and the larger number would have been harder to save.” (pp. 460-461. Emphasis added).

DANES AND POLES. DANES WERE NOT BETTER THAN EVERYBODY ELSE

Gunnar S. Paulsson concludes that, “The removal of the Jews from Denmark was carried out so successfully not primarily because of the positive qualities of the Danes as a nation, but because it accorded with the objective of a cynical and devious Nazi plan.” (pp. 458-459. Emphasis added).

Danes and Poles? Paulsson ends with this gem, “One is thus forced to conclude that the Danes are not after all paragons or marvels, but a people like any other…to hold up whole nations to praise or blame is worse than a questionable practice: it represents a subtle triumph of the Nazi idea.” (p. 461).

Hear that, Polonophobes?