By: Efran Radasky
It was 1933 when German soldiers came to Denmark.
They stood on every corner of every street with their shiny lustered boots, helmets, and their guns for who knows how long. When they came King Christian X knew that Denmark had to small of an army to defend his country, so the Danish people destroyed their own navy. The Danish people also had no sugar for sweets, tea, coffee, or butter! We could not even enjoy a single newspaper because there were none. No rubber or leather for shoes either, we had to use fish skin! The German soldiers closed down Jewish shops and said that no one was allowed outside after 8:00 P.M..
When we went to the synagog to worship, the rabbi told us that the Nazis were going to relocate them which means to go to all the Jewish homes and ship them off to concentration camps. We knew a friend that was in the resistance which is a group of freedom fighters that would help Jews escape. He helped us escape to a safe place where the Nazis could not get us to ship us off. There were a few other people there, so I walked up to someone and asked them why the Nazis were doing this. He replied “Hitler is doing this because he wants a ‘ Master Race ‘, also they say that when he was a kid that he went to an art institute which was ran by Jews and they said his drawings weren’t good enough.” He also said that in the concentration camps that if they had any hair or tattoos that they would remove them. We stayed at the place for well over a year and was served with better food than mashed potatoes,like chicken, beef, pork, and last but not least turkey! They gave us new clothes and a warm place to sleep. The best thing they had to offer were great friends and a place to worship.
I was surprised when my friend came back. He said “Come everyone for we are going to Sweden!” When we Jews got to the dock in Copenhagen the resistance had to stuff us into a secret compartment in the fishing boat. They gave us winter coats and blankets so we would not freeze to death on the trip to Sweden. On the trip to Sweden it was cold, but we all got our share of food. At the dock in Sweden there were a numerous amount of people waiting to take us to their homes for shelter. Soon after we arrived we learned that through the help of the resistance, around 7,000 Jews were saved from the Nazis.