Exodus - Leon Uris [41]
The situation seethed and seethed—and finally erupted! The morning of August 29, 1943, was ushered in with a blast heard across Zealand. The Danish fleet had scuttled itself in an effort to block the shipping channels!
The enraged Germans moved their forces on the government buildings and royal palace at Amalienborg. The King’s guard fought them off. A furious pitched battle broke out, but it was all over rather quickly. German soldiers replaced the King’s guard at Amalienborg. A score of German field generals, SS and Gestapo officials descended on Denmark to whip the Danes into line. The Danish Parliament was suspended and a dozen angry decrees invoked. The model protectorate was no longer a “model,” if indeed it ever had been.
The Danes answered the Germans by stepping up their acts of sabotage. Arsenals, factories, ammunition dumps, bridges were blown to bits. The Germans were getting jittery. Danish sabotage was beginning to hurt badly.
From German occupation headquarters at the Hotel D’Angleterre came the decree: ALL JEWS MUST WEAR A YELLOW ARM BAND WITH A STAR OF DAVID.
That night the underground radio transmitted a message to all Danes. “From Amalienborg Palace King Christian has given the following answer to the German command that Jews must wear a Star of David. The King has said that one Dane is exactly the same as the next Dane. He himself will wear the first Star of David and he expects that every loyal Dane will do the same.”
The next day in Copenhagen almost the entire population wore arm bands showing a Star of David.
The following day the Germans rescinded the order.
Although Aage was not active in the underground the partners of his law firm were leading members, and from time to time he received information of their activities. At the end of the summer of 1943 he became terribly worried and decided that he and Meta must reach a decision concerning Karen.
“It is true,” Aage told his wife. “In a matter of months the Germans will round up all the Jews. We just don’t know the exact time the Gestapo will strike.”
Meta Hansen walked to the window and stared blankly down at the lake and the bridge to the old town. It was evening and soon Karen would be coming home from ballet school. Meta’s mind had been filled with many things she had been planning for Karen’s thirteenth birthday party. It was going to be quite a wonderful affair—forty children—at the Tivoli Gardens.
Aage lit his pipe and stared at the picture of Karen on his desk. He sighed.
“I am not giving her up,” Meta said.
“We have no right ...”
“It is different. She is not a Danish Jew. We have records to show she is our child.”
Aage put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Someone in Aalborg may inform the Germans.”
“They won’t go to that trouble for one child.”
“Don’t you know these people by now?”
Meta turned around. “We will have her baptized and adopt her legally.”
Aage shook his head slowly. His wife slumped into a chair and bit her lip. She clutched the arms of the chair so tightly her hand turned white. “What will happen, Aage?”
“They are organizing to get all the Jewish people up to the Zealand beaches near the straits. We are purchasing as many boats as we can to make runs over to Sweden. The Swedes have sent word that they will accept everyone and provide for them.”
“How many nights I have lain awake and thought of this. I have tried to tell myself that she is in greater danger if she must flee. I tell myself over and over that she is safer here with us.”
“Think of what you are saying, Meta.”
The woman looked at her husband with an expression of anguish and determination he had never seen from her before. “I will never give her up, Aage. I cannot live without her.”
Every Dane who was called upon co-operated in a gigantic effort. The entire Jewish population of Denmark was whisked