NEXT GENERATIONS OPENING MEETING/PROGRAM
November 5, 2009
Late in September 1943 Adolf Hitler ordered the roundup and deportation of Denmark's Jews. But Danes sympathetic to the Jews plight hid and transported 7,700 men, women and children by boat to neutral Sweden. As a result of the courageous actions of the Danes and Swedes, an estimated 95 percent of Denmark's Jews survived World War II.
Why did these gentiles act as they did?
That was the question people who watched the documentary film "The Danish Solution" recently at Temple Beth El of Boca Raton asked.
"The importance of human values regardless of who you were," answered Asa Loof, president of the Swedish Women's Educational Association.
Loof introduced the film at the program "Standing Up to Evil: Scandinavia's Response during the Holocaust." The program was put on by Next Generations, an organization of children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and the synagogue sisterhood.
Not only did Danish gentiles help almost the entire Jewish population leave Denmark but they also took care of Jews' homes and businesses, Loof said. "I think that is extraordinary."
Most of the Danish Jews returned to their homes and businesses after the war, according to the film.
In the early 1940s Norway's 900 Jews — about half the Jewish population — escaped to Sweden, Loof said. The other half, she said, died in Auschwitz.
Only eight of Finland's 2,000 Jews did not escape to Sweden, Loof said.
And Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg went to Budapest where he saved about 10,000 Jews who also were sent to Sweden, she said.
"It is possible to stand up to evil," Loof said.
Gabriel Groszman of Boca Raton said he knows the story about the Swedes saving Jews well. Groszman, a Hungarian Jew, said he was saved by Wallenberg.
"All these Scandinavian countries lived in peace for 150 years," Groszman said. "Their thinking is very different. They are humanists."
Many Jews don't know the story of how Sweden and Denmark saved the Jews, Gloria Kanter of Boynton Beach said. But to her it is not a new story. Kanter's parents, both Holocaust survivors, and then five-year-old Gloria went to Sweden after the war. "It's a secular education," Kanter said. "We were perfectly happy in Sweden."
The family lived in Sweden for five years before coming to the United States, where her mother had family, Kanter said. "They wanted to go as far away as they could. The unthinkable had happened and it could happen again."
"We hope you go forth from this night knowing that there were people who helped Jews but there were not enough," Temple Beth El Associate Rabbi Jessica Spitalnic Brockman said to the audience.
The program was dedicated to Fani Bick who died on Oct. 15. Bick was active in Next Generations. Her children Nadine Berkowitz, David Bick and Rachel Bick were in the audience.
- From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
