Geography
Which country's WWII resistance smuggled nearly all its Jews to Sweden?
- Denmark
- Norway
- Netherlands
The answer is Denmark. In October 1943.
Denmark, in October 1943, when around 7,200 people - the great majority of the Danish Jewish population - were ferried across the Øresund to neutral Sweden in fishing boats over a few weeks. Roughly 99 per cent survived the war, which is unique in occupied Europe.
Several things made it possible and none of them were heroism alone. A German diplomat, Georg Duckwitz, leaked the date of the planned round-up; Sweden announced publicly that it would accept the refugees; the crossing is short; and Danish society had not been prepared by years of anti-Jewish legislation, because the occupation had been comparatively light and the Danish government had refused to introduce it. The Germans in Denmark also had reasons of their own not to press hard.
The story is sometimes told with a king wearing a yellow star, which never happened - Danish Jews were never required to wear one. What did happen is more useful: Danish civil servants, police, church and ordinary boat owners declined to cooperate, and the round-up found almost nobody at home. The Danish government also insisted on visiting the few hundred who were deported to Theresienstadt, which is a substantial part of why most of them survived too.