page_title: Rescue of the Danish Jews
section_title: Myth of the Danes and the yellow star
hierarchical_section_title: Rescue of the Danish Jews / Myth of the Danes and the yellow star
caption_attribution_description: Kong Christian d. X på sin morgenridetur gennem København Sted: København Fotograf: Elfelt Se flere billeder her: erez.natmus.dk/FHMbilleder/Site/index.jsp Rights: natmus.dk/en/besoeg-museerne/frihedsmuseet/archives/photo... More about The Museum of Danish Resistance (Frihedsmuseet): natmus.dk/en/besoeg-museerne/frihedsmuseet/
context_page_description: The rescue of the Danish Jews occurred during Nazi Germany's occupation of Denmark during World War II. On October 1, 1943, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler ordered Danish Jews to be arrested and deported. The Danish resistance movement, with the assistance of many Danish citizens, managed to evacuate 7,220 of Denmark's 7,800 Jews, plus 686 non-Jewish spouses, by sea to nearby neutral Sweden.
  The rescue allowed the vast majority of Denmark's Jewish population to avoid capture by the Nazis, and is considered one of the largest actions of collective resistance to aggression in the countries occupied by Nazi Germany. As a result of the rescue, and of the following Danish intercession on behalf of the 464 Danish Jews who were captured and deported to the Theresienstadt transit camp in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, over 99% of Denmark's Jewish population survived the Holocaust.
context_section_description: It has been popularly reported that the Nazis ordered all Danish Jews to wear an identifying yellow star, as was done elsewhere in Nazi-controlled territories. In some versions of the story, King Christian X opted to wear such a star himself and the Danish people followed his example, thus making the order unenforceable.
  The story is a myth. In fact the story about the King and the Star and other similar myths originated in the offices of the National Denmark America Association (NDAA) where a handful of Danish nationals opened a propaganda unit called "Friends of Danish Freedom and Democracy", which published a bulletin called The Danish Listening Post. This group hired Edward L. Bernays, "The father of Public Relation and Spin", as a consultant. Whether Bernays was the inventor of the story about the King and the yellow star is not known.
  Although the Danish authorities cooperated with the German occupation forces, they and most Danes strongly opposed the isolation of any group within the population, especially the well-integrated Jewish community. The German action to deport Danish Jews prompted the Danish state church and all political parties except the pro-Nazi National Socialist Workers' Party of Denmark (NSWPD) immediately to denounce the action and to pledge solidarity with the Jewish fellow citizens. For the first time they openly opposed the occupation. At once the Danish bishops issued a hyrdebrev—a pastoral letter to all citizens. The letter was distributed to all Danish ministers, to be read out in every church on the following Sunday. This was in itself very unusual, for the Danish church is decentralized and non-political.
  The unsuccessful German deportation attempt and the actions to save the Jews were important steps in linking the resistance movement to broader anti-Nazi sentiments in Denmark. In many ways, October 1943 and the rescuing of the Jews marked a change in most people's perception of the war and the occupation, thereby giving a "subjective-psychological" foundation for the myth.
  A few days after the roundup, a small news item in the New York Daily News reported the myth about the wearing of the Star of David. Later, the story gained its popularity in Leon Uris's novel Exodus and in its movie adaptation. The political theorist Hannah Arendt also mentions it during the discussion of Denmark in her book of reportage, Eichmann in Jerusalem. It persists to the present, but it is unfounded.
caption: King Christian X did not wear a yellow star in support of the Danish Jews, despite an urban legend to the contrary.
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