Year. In an improvised act of resistance, Danes from all walks of life worked to hide their Jewish neighbors any way they could.
Within days, Sweden announced it would accept all Danish Jews as refugees. Some three hundred Danish vessels—from fishing boats to kayaks—made perilous and clandestine passages across the Øresund Sound to Sweden, ferrying more than 7,000 refugees, or over 95% of all Jews within Denmark, to safety. The compassionate response of Swedish communities saved those Jews who reached their shores from the concentration camps. Unlike most other countries in Europe, Denmark also protected the property of Jewish refugees.
At the war’s end, it received its returning population with open arms.
Featured in the exhibition is the story of the Gerda III, one of many small vessels used in the Danish Rescue. The Gerda III alone saved an estimated 300 Jews in groups of 10-15 at a time on clandestine journeys to Sweden.
Twenty-two-year-old Henny Sinding Sundø, who led the Gerda III’s rescue activities, will be among the exhibition’s narrators telling stories of their experiences during the Danish Rescue. Donated to the Museum by the Danish Parliament in 1989, the Gerda III is currently docked at The Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut.