Danish PM to get award for Denmark's rescue of WWII Jews

Haaretz ^ | 4/1/2004 | Associated Press

[yonif]

COPENHAGEN - Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen will visit Houston, Texas, later this month to receive an award honoring the country's World War II rescue of thousands of Jews from occupying Nazi forces.

Fogh Rasmussen who will be in Houston April 20-22, will receive the Lyndon B. Johnson Moral Courage Award during a ceremony at the Holocaust Museum Houston on April 21, his office said Thursday.

The award was given to Denmark for "the miraculous action by people of all levels to save the Jewish population during the Holocaust," the museum said.

Previous recipients include U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and filmmaker Steven Spielberg who directed the Oscar-winning "Schindler's List."

German troops met no resistance when they invaded Denmark on April 9, 1940. The Danish government protested, but stayed in power and cooperated with the Nazis.

By 1943, efforts by the Danish resistance against the occupation led to martial law. In late September, some German officials tipped off Danish politicians about Adolf Hitler's order to round up Jews and deport them to concentration camps.

Danes spontaneously began smuggling several Danish Jews across the narrow Oresund Strait to safety in neutral Sweden, dodging German patrol boats.

About 7,300 Jews escaped, while 481 others - mainly elderly and sick people who couldn't get out - were arrested and deported to a concentration camp in Theresienstadt, in what was then Czechoslovakia. Fifty-three died there.

Fogh Rasmussen will also speak at the James baker Institute for Public Policy at the Rice University about the situation in the Middle East and the U.S.-Danish bilateral relations.

[laconic]

The "Lyndon B. Johnson MORAL COURAGE Award"? I was unaware the man had any. Having insisted on a lose-lose strategy of attrition and pinprick bombings, LBJ cut and ran from office at the height of the Vietnam War, leaving 550,000 troops in the swamp and allowing his fellow Democrats in Congress to "become" antiwar, effective date January 20, 1969 (the date LBJ left, and RM Nixon took office). Denmark deserves a better award than this for the good works of the Danes in connection with protecting Danish Jews.

[rageaholic]

Danes are pragmatic, generous and fair people with a strong sense of what's right. They are also notoriously tidy. Thus it is no coincidence that their immigration reforms are some of the toughest in Europe.

[freedom moose]

i shared an apartment with a danish jew in tel aviv in the 90's. i asked him about this several times (he was much too young to have lived through the war). he told me he felt no pride in the actions of the danish (non jews wearing stars etc) against the nazis because it came from their love of the "underdog" and no great love for jews. he went as far to say that modern denmark was very anti-jewish. i always was surprised by this. it's important to add that he was fairly miserable, dark. lonely and suspicious of ANY act of kindness.
i never told anyone about this.....odd that i would have a chance to share it on FR.

[TopQuark]

Obviously a troubled person with very vague notions of right and wrong.

[Utah Binger]

Jeg drikker til det! Ahhh Carlsberg!!!!!
I lived in Denmark as a youth....Nice Girls...Fabulous food...Outstanding beer...Socialists to the core. That was a very fine gesture saving the Jews. Not all understood or agreed, however, they take great pride in this. Unfortunately times have changed in good old Danmark. Can't say what exactly it is. They really loved us in the sixties...Last time I was in Copenhagen we had lots of ugly confrontations about us terrible Americans. But after a few room temperature Carlsberg's, they loved us again. If there was a way to prevent the 60-75% tax rate, might not mind living there again.