The Jews of Holland were: betrayed by their Dutch neighbours, rounded up by Dutch policemen on Dutch orders (there were very few Gestapo in Holland at the time), taken to Dutch-run concentration camps, shipped to Auschwitz on Dutch trains with Dutch drivers. At war's end: the few survivors who returned from the death camps were treated like pariahs, virtually none of the immense amount of property stolen by the Dutch state and ordinary Dutch citizens was returned, none of the collaborators in the Holocaust were every prosecuted (indeed many police officer were richly rewarded with promotions and so forth; the few policemen who had refused to collaborated were ostracised by their colleagues).

106,000 Dutch Jews (over 76%) were murdered during the Holocaust. This was easily the highest percentage in Western Europe.

Denmark was almost a whole different ballgame (I say almost because a few Jewish foreigners were handed over to the Nazis and a larger number of former citizens (mainly women) were refused entry to Holland at the start of the war). Aside from that the record of the courageous Danes was almost unblemished. The King personally intervened over and over again to make sure that the Jews who were shipped to concentration camps were not harmed, and because of this intervention a great majority were saved (no, he never did wear a Star of David; neither actually did the Jews of Denmark). Alone amongst the occupied nations of Europe, the Danes made sure that the properties of Jews who had left were not just not harmed but were also kept in tip-top condition (returning Jews were amazed to find lawns trimmed and windows washed). Why was Denmark different? For the simple reason that the Jews were not considered a people apart. In their eyes they were Danish citizens and that was that.

Had the rest of Europe, which for the most part did not just turn its back but actively and willingly collaborated, been much more like Denmark, then there would have been no Holocaust.

A Miracle in Denmark

The rescue of the Danish Jews

Five Pictures from the German-occupied Denmark that speak volumes.

Ellen Nielsen

Ellen Nielsen is an unfamiliar name to most people, but this remarkable woman defied the Nazis and saved the lives of many refugees. She was one of the most dedicated and active workers in aiding Jews during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. Her courage enabled not only the survival of hundreds of Danish Jews but also of the generations of their descendants.

Mrs. Ellen Nielsen lost her husband, Christian Nielsen, in April, 1941, and supported her six children as a fishmonger on the Copenhagen docks, buying fish directly from the fishermen and selling it to passers-by.

During the first week of October 1943, while she was selling fish on the docks, she was approached by two young boys. They told Mrs. Nielsen they were Jewish brothers and asked her to help them escape the Nazis and find a fisherman who would take them to safety in Sweden.

As soon as she heard the story, she offered to hide the boys in her home while she arranged for a boat which would take them to Sweden. In a short time, the boys were safely across the sound in Sweden.

Through the fishermen, the Danish underground learned of Ellen Nielsen's act, and during the following weeks, over a hundred Jewish refugees passed through her home on their way to Sweden. At one time, Mrs. Nielsen had over thirty refugees squeezed into her small house. In addition she hid several saboteurs for the underground ..

In December 1944, Ellen Nielsen was caught by the Nazis, tortured and eventually sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany as prisoner 94.315.

In the book Women in the Resistance and in the Holocaust: The Voices of Eyewitnesses, edited by Vera Laska, the author tells how Ellen Nielsen was condemned to death and placed three times on the line leading to the gas chamber.

The first time she saved herself by bribing a guard with a bar of soap which she had received in a Danish Red Cross parcel. The second time she was able to do the same with the contents of another Danish parcel. The third time she had nothing left with which to bribe the guards. Waiting on the line, stripped naked, she was resigned to death.

Suddenly she was approached by Nazi guards who informed her she had been saved by an agreement between SS Heinrich Himmler and the Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte to have all surviving Danish concentration camp prisoners shipped to Sweden for internment.

Ellen Nielsen was taken to Sweden just before the end of the war ..

She returned to Denmark immediately after WW2 and died November 26, 1967 - a true heroine.

Please note: The piece that follows the link marked "Ellen Nielsen" is a direct quote.

Because of Anne Frank, there is a myth about the Dutch Jews being protected by their neighbors. Actually Holland had the largest contingent of S.S. men fighting for the Germans and the vast majority of Dutch Jews (like French Jews) were turned in by their fellow citizens and arrested not by German police but by Dutch police. Anne Frank as a matter of fact ws arresed by one German and several Dutch policemen.