Eighty years ago today, a German diplomat secretly warned the Danish resistance that the Nazis were planning to deport the Danish Jews.
Days later, Preben Munch-Nielsen, then a teenager, began to help rescue his Jewish fellow citizens. Preben had previously been involved in some minor resistance, distributing illegal newspapers meant to counter Nazi propaganda. But now his efforts would take on a riskier form.
Preben’s job was to meet groups of Jews, many fleeing from Copenhagen after learning of the Nazi plot. He would take them from the local train station near the seaside village of Snegerstein and find them temporary places to stay. Neighbors were willing to help, he said.
“When more refugees came than expected, we just went to the next door, and it was never denied,” Preben remembered.
While the Danes did not fully comprehend the risks to the Jews they were helping, he said they had heard of concentration camps and knew the Jews were in great danger.
At night, Preben would help ferry them to waiting boats and sometimes he would accompany them to safety in Sweden.
“What we did was a matter of decency,” Preben said after the war. “Could I have been able to look and see myself in the mirror if I had turned my back?"
Learn more about Rescue in Denmark: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/rescue-in-denmark?utm_medium=socialmedia&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=socialholiday&utm_content=danishrescuebegins:personalstory20230928
Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Preben Munch-Nielsen
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