Origin of the Canadian-Scandinavian Foundation

The CSF was founded in 1950 by a group of prominent Canadian and Scandinavian business and community leaders. The Foundation is managed by an elected Board of Directors which collects funds and administers scholarships to send qualified Canadians to study in Scandinavia. The study visits / research projects must be carefully planned in advance and may be up to two years duration, depending on the scholarship / project. The Foundation also provides funds for recognized Canadian experts in various fields to benefit from advanced research in Scandinavia.

The CSF also administers the two Swedish Institute Scholarships awarded each year to Canadians, the Weldon Scholarship for studies in Norway, the Finnair travel grant, and the Brucebo Arts Scholarship.

Rescue of the Danish Jews

Most individuals in occupied Europe did not actively collaborate in the Nazi genocide. Nor did they do anything to help Jews and other victims of Nazi policies. Throughout the Holocaust, millions of people silently stood by while they saw Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and other “enemies of the Reich” being rounded up and deported. Many of these bystanders told themselves that what they saw happening was none of their business. Others were too frightened to help. In many places, providing shelter to Jews was a crime punishable by death.

In spite of the risks, a small number of individuals refused to stand by and watch. These people had the courage to help by providing hiding places, underground escape routes, false papers, food, clothing, money, and sometimes even weapons.

Denmark was the only occupied country that actively resisted the Nazi regime’s attempts to deport its Jewish citizens. On September 28, 1943, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German diplomat, secretly informed the Danish resistance that the Nazis were planning to deport the Danish Jews. The Danes responded quickly, organizing a nationwide effort to smuggle the Jews by sea to neutral Sweden. Warned of the German plans, Jews began to leave Copenhagen, where most of the almost 8,000 Jews in Denmark lived, and other cities, by train, car, and on foot. With the help of the Danish people, they found hiding places in homes, hospitals, and churches. Within a two-week period fishermen helped ferry some 7,200 Danish Jews and 680 non-Jewish family members to safety across the narrow body of water separating Denmark from Sweden.

The Danish rescue effort was unique because it was nationwide. It was not completely successful, however. Almost 500 Danish Jews were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia. Yet even of these Jews, all but 51 survived the Holocaust, largely because Danish officials pressured the Germans with their concerns for the well-being of those who had been deported. The Danes proved that widespread support for Jews and resistance to Nazi policies could save lives.

There are numerous stories of brave people in other countries who also tried to save the Jews from perishing at the hands of the Nazis. Nearly 12,000 Jewish children were rescued by clergymen in France who found housing for them and even smuggled some into Switzerland and Spain. About 20,000 Polish Jews were able to survive in hiding outside the ghetto in Warsaw because people provided shelter for them in their homes. Some Jews were even hidden in the Warsaw Zoo by the zoo’s director, Jan Zabinski.

Key Dates

AUGUST 29, 1943

DANISH GOVERNMENT RESIGNS

The Germans occupied Denmark on April 9, 1940. The Danes and the Germans reached an agreement in which the Danish government and army remained in existence. Despite the occupation, the Germans did not initiate deportations from Denmark. In the summer of 1943, with Allied military advances, resistance activity in Denmark increases in the form of sabotage and strikes. These actions, however, cause tension between the occupying German forces and the Danish government. In August 1943, the Germans present the Danish government with new demands to end resistance activities. The Danish government refuses to meet the new demands and resigns, after three years of German occupation. The Germans take over the administration of Denmark and attempt to implement the “Final Solution” by arresting and deporting Jews. The Danes respond with a nationwide rescue operation.

OCTOBER 2, 1943

SWEDEN OFFERS ASYLUM TO JEWS OF DENMARK

In a report to German officials in Berlin, the Swedish government offers asylum to some 7,000 Jews in Denmark. At the end of September 1943, the German plan to arrest and deport Danish Jews is leaked to Danish authorities who warn the Jewish population in Denmark and urge them to go into hiding. In response, the Danish underground and general population spontaneously organize a nationwide effort to smuggle Jews to the coast where Danish fisherman ferry them to Sweden. In little more than three weeks, the Danes ferry more than 7,000 Jews and close to 700 of their non-Jewish relatives to Sweden. Despite the Danish efforts, some 500 Jews are arrested by the Germans and deported to Theresienstadt ghetto.

JUNE 23, 1944

DANISH DELEGATION VISITS THERESIENSTADT

A Danish delegation joins representatives of the International Red Cross on a visit to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Bohemia. To deceive both these visitors and world opinion about Nazi treatment of the Jews, the SS beautifies the ghetto and creates the impression that Theresienstadt is a self-governing Jewish settlement. Unlike other prisoners in Theresienstadt, the 500 Danish prisoners there are not deported to concentration camps and are permitted to receive parcels from the Red Cross. On April 15, 1945, the Danish prisoners are released from the ghetto into the hands of the Swedish Red Cross. This is a result of negotiations between Swedish government representatives and Nazi officials in which Scandinavian prisoners in camps, including Jews, are transferred to a holding camp in northern Germany. These prisoners are eventually sent to Sweden where they stay until the end of the war. Out of the some 500 Danish Jews deported, about 450 survive.

Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC