Several emailers have made this point:
Jonah, given the frequency with which I find myself in agreement with you, I’d probably qualify for what Pat Buchanan might call your “amen corner”. That said, I thought you came off pretty poorly in your post on the Danes’ performance during the Nazi genocide against Europe’s Jews. Look, few countries (and fewer Europeans) have any reason to write home about their assistance to Jews under the gun from 1933-1945. Our own country wasn’t exactly rolling out the red carpet for European Jews when they could still get out. Yet, judging against the performance of Denmark’s neighbors, including the accomplice populations of Germany, Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the western S.S.R.s, not to mention the amiably acquiescent CESMs of Vichy French, I’d say the Danes’ less-than-full-throttle willingness to put their necks out for Jews looks downright admirable. Maybe I’m overreacting, but I just thought your post was uncharacteristically churlish and slighting–it’s as if you are holding the Danes to a standard of conduct higher than was displayed by any other country at the time.
ETHNICITY DISCLAIMER: I don’t have a drop of Danish blood in me, although I might have rushed to their defense based solely on my admitted love for their strong line of pastries.
Best regards,
Ray
Me: I think this is probably fair. I didn’t intend to sound that harsh about the Danes. Though I did say that their behavior was a highwater mark for Europe’s response to the Holocaust. And I think the Danes certainly should be proud of, and praised for, their conduct. Several readers suggested that I’m unwilling to cut the Danes some slack for what was a difficult and frightening situation. Rather I impose a verdict only reachable in some seminar on situational ethics. That may be how I sounded, but it’s really not how I see these things.
There’s just a lot of mythology out there about how various countries behaved during the war. People forget that Fascist Italy and Franco’s Spain were arguably the best Jewish safe-havens in Europe (in Italy, that is, until 1943 when the Nazis took over). Austria was not the “first victim” of the war, but an eager volunteer in 1938. In 1933-1934, however, Austria almost became a victim of Nazi aggression, but it was Mussolini who defended Austria’s independence from “Prussian barbarism” while the democracies did little to nothing. Lately, Switzerland gets a lot of grief for its behavior during the war. Not everyone in Switzerland behaved admirably, but they certainly were more brave in the face of Nazism than the Austrians. Morally speaking, Danes made the best out of a bad situation — and behaved far better than many nations which had their Jews ready for pick-up before the Nazis arrived. History must always grade on a curve , and on the curve the Danes pass with flying colors.