opportunities for the non-privileged Jews (those
not married to Christian spouses with offspring)
to survive were so slight as to be negligible in
practice.
Poles and Jews had lived for centuries together,
but in separate communities. Even in 1931, most
of the 3 million Jews in Poland were largely unas-
similated, although those who were assimilated
were well represented in the professions and the
middle class. Under the Nazi occupation anti-
Semitism was reinforced by propaganda, but there
were Poles who, though they did not like Jews,
helped them because they hated the Germans
more. There were also Poles who actively assisted
the Germans to round up Jews. Several thousand
Poles, however, out of feelings of pity, hid Jews at
great risk to themselves, for the penalty was death.
It has been estimated that between 50,000 and
100,000 Polish Jews survived, some fighting as
partisans or with the Red Army. In Warsaw
15,000 found hiding places, many more than in
Berlin. Had more Germans made efforts to protest
at the persecution of the Jews, Hitler would have
found it far more difficult to carry out the
Holocaust.
In the Netherlands, Belgium, France and,
above all, Italy the Jews stood a better chance of
survival. Many Jews were hidden in homes, in
monasteries and in villages. Official Vichy France,
however, gave some aid to the Germans in round-
ing up the Jews, including French citizens of
Jewish faith, for transportation to the death camps
in the east. Uniquely, all but 500 of about 7,000
Jews living in Denmark were rescued by the
Danish resistance by being ferried across to
Sweden. The Danish resistance had been alerted to
their imminent deportation by Dr Duckwitz, a
courageous German official in Copenhagen who
had learnt of their intended fate from a leak passed
on by someone in the Gestapo. The fate of the
Danish Jews who did not escape was extraordinary.
The Nazi rulers in Berlin maintained the fiction
that Denmark had remained a sovereign country
and the Danes were therefore permitted to con-
tinue to protect all Danish citizens, including
Danish Jews. The 500 Danish Jews were deported
to the privileged ghetto of Theresienstadt, where
they were housed separately in much better condi-
tions than the other Jews. They remained in con-
tact with the Danish authorities, who insisted on
providing for them to the end of the war. None
were transported to the extermination camps fur-
ther east and almost all of them survived and
returned to Denmark after the liberation. They
were the fortunate exception. Dr Duckwitz also
survived and is honoured as ‘one of the righteous’
at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in
Jerusalem.
Germany’s ally, Italy, on the other hand, in
practice protected Jews despite Mussolini’s anti-
Jewish legislation. Until Italy’s capitulation and
the consequent German occupation, the Italian
military authorities in their Croatian zone and in
the Italian zone of France prevented both
German troops and police from arresting Jews for
transportation east or murder by the Croatian
Ustachi on the spot. The Italian army would have
nothing to do with the brutal mass murder of the
Jews being instigated by the Germans and their
‘allies’ and either sabotaged orders or simply
refused to carry them out. Feelings of humanity
and decency were not extinct.
In occupied Europe local police could be
found to do the dirty work of the Germans for
them. In some cases they would have been shot
had they disobeyed. In others the work was done
with enthusiasm. The public silence of the Pope
and the Vatican and of the GermanProtestant
churches signifies a massive moral failure. In con-
trast, in Holland Catholic churches and many
Protestant churches read protests from the pulpit
after the first Dutch transport of Jews. Priests and
pastors, wherever Germany held power, suffered
martyrdom for their personal protest. Bishop
Galen of Münster publicly condemned the
murder of some 60,000 to 80,000 feeble-minded
and incurably ill Germans in the so-called
‘euthanasia’ programme but failed to raise his
voice for the Jews. Hitler feared that the people’s
war effort might be undermined by an open
onslaught on religious beliefs. A strong public
movement by the Germanchurches and military,
might have saved countless Jewish lives. Hitler
and his regime were sensitive to, and watched, the
reactions of the German people. There was no
such public movement.
1
THE ORDEAL OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR 269
