THE HOLOCAUST AND THE UNITED NATIONS OUTREACH PROGRAMME

35
The Legacy of
the Danish Rescue
By Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke, Senior Researcher,
Danish Institute for International Studies
With this paper, I will share some of my thoughts on the relationship
between Holocaust education and Holocaust memory in Europe. I
will do this by presenting the experience gained in Denmark over the
past decade and by giving a general overview of Holocaust memory
as it emerged in Europe from the mid-1990s.
One cannot understand the situation in Denmark without considering
the general European context. Of course, there was the uniquely
Danish phenomenon of the rescue of 95% of its Jewish population
which during early October 1943 fled to Sweden with the help of the
local population, the resistance movement, Danish authorities and
members of civil society (Bak 2010). In an international perspective,
this rescue operation is considered unique, and the “Danish Rescue”’
stands as a light in the generally very dark history of the Holocaust.
This “Danish exceptionalism” has had perhaps the unintentional
result that little attention has been paid to the history of the Holocaust
in Denmark until recently.
However, in 2003, Denmark joined other European nations in marking
Holocaust Remembrance Day, which commemorates the victims
of the Holocaust and other genocides. This day is observed on
the 27th of January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
In observance of this day, several educational activities take place
around the country, through which Danish children, 15 years of
age and older, are introduced to the history of the Holocaust. The