The Fate of the Danish Jews during the Holocaust

The Fate of the Jews of Denmark

Hitler invades Denmark

The Germans invaded Denmark on 9 April 1940, in a combined attack against Norway, a few hours later the Danish Government accepted the German ultimatum and surrendered.

At the beginning of 1942 Himmler and Heydrich enlisted the zealous aid of the Foreign Office to get the Nuremberg anti-Jewish laws applied to all Western countries under military occupation.

In Holland, a totally occupied country this pressure could not be resisted, in France a half-occupied country, it was half-resisted. In the case of Denmark a nation which retained its neutrality under German occupation, with a monarchy and constitution both unimpaired.

Here the pressure of Ribbentrop and Himmler was resisted with ninety-five per cent success – almost the only bright spark in a truly dark and depressing tale of murder and misery.

In January 1942 it was reported in the American press that the King of Denmark had threatened to abdicate if the German demand for Nuremberg legislation was pressed.

As a consequence, Rademacher the SS watch-dog over the Diplomatic Corps, advised Cecil von Renthe- Fink, the Reich plenipotentiary in Copenhagen, “to find occasions to point out that it would be prudent for Denmark to prepare in good time for the Final Solution.”

Cecil von Renthe-Fink

But Denmark was not prudent, and in June 1942, when the Germans were pressing for a Danish “Jewish badge” decree, similar to which had been in force in the Reich since September 1941, King Christian was reported to have said that he would be the first Danish citizen to wear the badge.

Himmler now tried to proceed against the Jews in Denmark in the guise of security measures. On 24 September 1942 he ordered Heinrich Muller, the head of the Gestapo, to insert the names of Jews in a list of Danish Communist and resistance leaders whom he proposed to arrest.

No doubt Himmler believed he could rely on the co-operation of Renthe-Fink successor, Karl Werner Best, since Best had once been legal advisor to the Gestapo – but Best who had left the Gestapo to escape the clutches of Heydrich, was now relieved of the worst anxieties of a successful careerist by the death of his enemy.

Moreover, as a Reich plenipotentiary in a quasi-neutral country, Best desired a quiet life above all things, so his report to Ribbentrop on 28 January 1943, was quite daring. Best suggested that, since the proposed measures would certainly create a constitutional crisis in Denmark, the Danes should be asked only to dismiss their Jews from the civil service.

Under Himmler’s prodding Ribbentrop returned to the charge, and on 24 April, Best replied that out of 6,500 Jews in Denmark only 31 were civil servants. Of course, there were the 1,351 refugees from the Reich whom the Danish Government had hitherto protected, but Best suggested that the Danes would not be able to do this any longer if the refugees were given back their German nationality.

Such a step was, however, impossible under the 11th decree supplementing the Reich Law of Citizenship, which could not be retracted in the case of refugees in Denmark without upsetting the whole legal fabric of the deportations from Germany.

Werner Best identification papers

Himmler still insisted on the full application of the Final Solution in Denmark and Ribbentrop as usual, gave way. On 22 May he informed Best that while he could not take instructions from Himmler, the next steps might be discussed with Himmler in the precincts of the Foreign Office, if necessary in Ribbentrop’s presence.

Nothing however was done till August when a disturbance in Denmark gave Himmler the pretext he required. On 5 August 1943, Sweden renounced the 1940 agreement by which German troops stationed in Norway were permitted to use her railway system.

This action inspired the Danish dock workers at Odense to refuse to repair German ships. There were riots and arrests and on 9 August, the Danish Premier Scavenius, threatened to resign if the Danish courts were required to try the arrested men.

As a consequence, the Germans introduced martial law at Odense, and on the 24 August 1943 – the day that Himmler was made Minister of Interior – the Danish resistance movement blew up the German – occupied Forum Hall in Copenhagen, and on the following day all the Danish shipyards were on strike.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/danishjews.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/

Copyright. Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Julius Streicher - Anti-Semitic Monster

Julius Streicher

The Beast of Franconia

Julius Streicher

Julius Streicher was born on 12 February 1885 in the Upper Bavarian village of Fleinhausen. An elementary school teacher by profession, Streicher served in a Bavarian unit during the Great War and despite a warning for bad behaviour was awarded the Iron Cross First Class, and he rose from enlisted man to lieutenant.

In 1919 he co-founded the anti-Semitic Deutsch-Soziale Partei and two years later joined the NSDAP, taking his own Party membership with him. Streicher was an intimate friend of Adolf Hitler and one of the earliest supporters of Nazism in northern Bavaria.

In 1925 he was appointed Gauleiter of the NSDAP for Franconia and his headquarters in Nuremberg became a leading centre for violent anti-Semitism in Germany. Streicher’s unbecoming conduct and diatribes against the Weimar Government led to his dismissal from his teaching post in 1928.

A year later he was elected as a Nazi member of the Bavarian legislature. Streicher was a tireless speaker and plebeian rabble-rouser, whose political influence derived largely from the impact of Der Stürmer, which he founded in 1923 and continued to edit until 1945.

Hitler, Hess & Streicher

This weekly newspaper became the world’s best known anti-Semitic publication with its crude cartoons, repellent photographs of Jews, its stories of ritual murder, pornography and its coarse prose style.

Streicher reached millions of Germans, through his newspaper columns, and his endless speaking tours imbuing them, with his own poisonous brew of hatred, sadism and perversity. The impact of Der Stürmer as greatly enhanced by a nationwide system of display cases (Stürmerkasten) put up in parks, public squares, factory canteens, at street corners and bus stops, to attract passers- by.

Their visual impact, their racists slogans and scandal- mongering style drew crowds, Der Stürmer consistently carried large- print slogans such as “Avoid Jewish Doctors and Lawyers” and gave listings of Jewish dentists, shopkeepers, and professional people whom “Aryans” were urged to avoid.

Those who ignored this advice were in danger of having their own names and addresses listed. Letters to the editor denouncing Jews – and Germans who patronised them – became a regular feature of Der Stürmer, which claimed in 1935 that it was receiving 11,000 letters a week.

An issue of Der Stürmer

The “Pillory” column created a climate of fear and intimidation not only in Nuremberg – where Streicher dominated all spheres of life – but throughout the Reich. Through Der Stürmer , Streicher provided a focus for the anti-Jewish measures of Nazi Germany, pressing already in 1933, for the banning of Jews from public baths, places of entertainment, State schools etc.

After Streicher spoke in Magdeburg in 1935, Jews were barred from using public transport, the general campaign which led to the Nuremberg racial laws in 1935 was initiated by his newspaper.

One of Streicher’s most enthusiastic readers was Adolf Hitler, who declared that Der Stürmer was the only paper which he read avidly from first to last page. Undoubtedly the Fuhrer protected Streicher raising him to high office and praising him as the “friend and comrade in arms” who never wavered and would unflinchingly stand behind him in every situation.”

Read the full story here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/streicher.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

Copyright Chris Webb & Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2008

Treblinka Survivor – Testimony – Selected Extracts

Sonia Lewkowicz

Treblinka Survivor – Testimony – Selected Extracts

Federenko Trial
Fort Lauderdale, USA 1978

[photos added to enhance the text]

Q: Where were you born?

Sonia Lewkowicz:
I was born in the city of Dombrowa , near Grodno, Poland.

Q: And when were you born?

On the 11^th of March 1922

A country scene in Dombrowa, Poland

Q: And when did you finish school?

It was already during the war in June 1924, correction 1941

Q: In December 1942 were you taken in a transport to Treblinka Camp?

Yes

Q: You were twenty years old when this happened?

That is right

Q: Tell the Court what happened, when the train you were riding in pulled into the Treblinka camp?

When the train stopped, we were chased from the cars to a big square where we were separated, women and children on one side, the men on the other side. We went to the barrack where we had to undress.

Q: And did you undress?

Yes

Q: Who else was in the barrack where you were forced to undress?

There were other women and children, Germans, Ukrainians, and
Jewish prisoners, men, with some kind of a blue band on their sleeves.

Q: Tell us what happened to you?

I wouldn’t undress completely. One of those Jewish prisoners, Jewish men, who suggested that I should say that I am a laundress. Then he ran to the SS –man, told him probably I am a laundress, and pushed me into him, and he said to this officer that I am a qualified laundress, he pulled me aside.

Q: One of the Jewish prisoners with an arm band that said you were to say
you were a laundress?

Yes

Q: Was that in order to save your life?

The station outside of Treblinka

Yes

Q: Were you really a qualified laundress?

No

Q: So when you made the statement to the SS man that you were a laundress,
were you pulled out of line?

Yes

Q: Was anybody else – were any other women pulled out of the line at the
same time you were?

Yes.

Q: How many others?

Another woman – one other woman.

Q: Do you remember her name?

Yes. Sonja Berman

Read the full article here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/sonialewkowicz.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org>

Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Ernst Kaltenbrunner

<--Ernst Kaltenbrunner

Ernst Kaltenbrunner was born on 4 October 1903 in the valley of the Inn, near Braunau, the birthplace of Adolf Hitler. Descended from a family of country artisans – his father and grandfather, were however lawyers, Kaltenbrunner was educated in Linz, where Adolf Eichmann was one of his boyhood friends, and subsequently studied law at Graz University.

He took his doctorate in law in 1926, setting up his practice as a lawyer in Linz. Active in one of the first groups of Austrian National Socialist students and for a time a militant in the Independent Movement for a Free Austria, Kaltenbrunner eventually joined the Nazi Party in 1932.

A year later he became a member of one of the more or less camouflaged SS organisations in Austria and a spokesman for the Party in Upper Austria, providing legal advice to members and sympathizers.

In 1934 Kaltenbrunner was arrested by the Dolfuss government, and again in May 1935 he spent six months in prison on a conspiracy charge, being struck from the bar for his political activities. Shortly before his second arrest he had been appointed Commander of the Austrian SS.

After his release he worked assiduously with Seyss- Inquart for the Anschluss with Germany and as a reward for his services, was appointed by Seyss- Inquart on 2 March 1938 as Minister for State Security in Austria and promoted to SS- Gruppenfuher.

At the same time he became a member of the Reichstag, and during the next three years Kaltenbrunner was successively appointed as Commander –in – Chief of the SS and Police for the regions of Vienna, the Upper and Lower Danube and then in April 1941 Lieutenant – General of the Police.

<-- Kaltenbruner (on right) with Himmler 1941 '

He created an impressive intelligence network radiating from Austria south-eastwards, which caught the attention of Himmler, who to general surprise recommended him in January 1943 as head of the RSHA in Berlin in succession to Reinhard Heydrich.

In this key position as head of the Security Police (SIPO) and the Security Service (SD) Kaltenbrunner not only controlled the Gestapo but also the concentration camp system and the administrative apparatus for carrying out the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.”

A giant of a man, nearly seven feet tall, with massive broad shoulders, huge arms, a thick square chin and deep scars from his student duelling days, Kaltenbrunner excelled in brutal repression and providing human fodder for the concentration camps.

Excitable, deceitful, self-indulgent – he was an alcoholic and a chain-smoker – he took a personal interest in various methods of execution used in the camps under his aegis and especially in the gas chambers.

Read more here:

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/kaltenbrunner.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org