Beyond Duty <\|/> Germany: Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz

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Beyond Duty <\|/> Germany: Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz
Beyond Duty <\|/> Germany: Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz

The Beyond Duty exhibition is dedicated to the Righteous Among the Nations


Germany: Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz
Wishing to foster the cooperation of the Danes, and fearing that persecuting the Jews would result in widespread opposition, Nazi Germany did not enact anti-Jewish legislation in the first years of its occupation of Denmark. However, in the fall of 1943, following a sharp increase in Danish strikes and sabotage attempts, the policy changed, and preparations were made to deport the country’s 7,800 Jews. News of the planned roundup reached the Jewish population, and, thanks to the proximity of Sweden, 7,200 Jews and some 700 of their non-Jewish relatives were brought to safety in the course of three weeks in October of 1943. 482 Jews, mostly the elderly and infirm, were caught and deported to the German detention camp of Thereisentadt
In 1939, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz was appointed as the German Maritime Attaché in Denmark. Duckwitz enjoyed good connections with Danish leaders, and became a close confidant of the Nazi Plenipotentiary for Denmark, Werner Best. When, in September 1943, Hitler demanded an iron-fist policy toward the increasingly rebellious country and an immediate implementation of the “Final Solution,” Best tipped off his confidante about the plan for the deportation of Denmark’s Jewish community. At great personal risk, Duckwitz proceeded to inform his Danish Social-Democratic friends, who, in turn, alerted the leadership of the Danish Jewish community. This made the great rescue operation, in which over 90 percent of Danish Jewry were saved from the Nazi clutches, possible.
Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1971.

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Taken on: September 9, 2021
Sets appears in:   • Righteous Among The Nations    • Beyond Duty    more » • Children In The Holocaust    « less
Groups appears in:   • A Place For Portraits    • Holocaust History    more » • HOLOCAUSTO (השואה, Shoá)...In memoriam    « less
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