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Portrait photograph by Judy Glickman of Danish fisherman who ferried Jews to safety

Object | Accession Number: 2010.206.7

Black and white photographic print taken by Judy Glickman in Gilleje, Denmark, in 1992 of Frede Svendsen, a Danish fisherman and rescuer. Frede used his boat to ferry Jews to Sweden. A rumor that a boat was leaving at 10pm resulted in hundreds trying to gain passage. There was a false alarm that the Gestapo was coming and as his boat left the dock, a man came running and at the last minute was pulled aboard. After the war, he returned to thank his rescuers. Germany occupied Denmark on April 9, 1940, but allowed the Danish government to retain control of domestic affairs. Jews were not molested and the German presence was limited. After the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and began to face military setbacks, a Danish resistance movement developed. On August 29, 1943, the Germans declared martial law and began to address the Jewish problem. A mass deportation was scheduled for October 1. The plan was leaked and, the night before the action, Danish citizens organized a large scale rescue effort and ferried 7000 people, nearly all the Jews in Denmark, to neutral Sweden.

Artwork Title
Frede Svendsen
Date
creation:  1992
Geography
creation: Denmark
Classification
Photographs
Credit Line
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Judith Ellis Glickman
 
Record last modified: 2022-07-28 18:26:25
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn41824