As a child, one of the most meaninrje3hh4oiXgful and inspiring events for me was seeing the Danish boat at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum and learning about the amazing story behind it.
This is the story of one awe-inspiring society — Danish society — that during one of humanity's lowest points — the Second World War and the Holocaust of the Jewish people — chose to show compassion, morality, resourcefulness, and extraordinary courage above all.
The Nazis invaded Denmark in April 1940. Right from the beginning of the occupation, the Danes, led by King Christian X, opposed the implementation of the Nazis' racist policy toward the Jews, sparing them from any form of harassment or discrimination.
However, at the end of September 1943, the Nazis decided to apply their "Final Solution" to the Jews of Denmark as well.
From this point forward, the Jews were hidden in every nook and cranny, in large part thanks to the local resistance, and were eventually smuggled to the country's eastern shore right under the Germans' noses. From there, thousands of Jews were smuggled in fishing boats to neutral Sweden within days.
Bottom line, despite two and half years under Nazi German occupation, the authorities and people of a European country managed in October 1943 to complete a heroic, and unfortunately unprecedented, operation to save 95% of their Jewish neighbors, friends and colleagues in one month.
Individual Righteous Among the Nations were scattered all throughout Europe, but a whole nation? As a child learning about this for the first time, I was left speechless, astonished and thrilled.
"Who knows what crossroads a nation would come upon?" wondered Yitzhak "Antek" Zuckerman, one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Well, describing the crossroads the Danish people faced as "dangerous and challenging" would be an understatement, and they succeeded with flying colors.
To this day, the memory of these events strengthens my faith in the spirit of man and the ability of human beings to make the right and moral choice even in the most desperate of times.
Thankfully, Danish Ambassador to Israel Anne Dorte Riggelsen also ascribes great importance to this chapter in the relations between the two peoples, and for the past two years, she's been hard at work developing an educational program that touches on that rescue operation and the lessons that can be learned from it.
There is a great opportunity here to learn from this amazing story and present it as an educational model of true virtue for our children and our students in Israel and around the world. A model that will serve as a source of inspiration for how society should behave. A model for the exemplary society that we should aspire to become and that may come to be here in the future in a country that is constantly faced with complex social challenges.
The Danish people taught us a lesson that is not celebrated much in the history of the Second World War and the Holocaust of the Jewish people, but deserves a place in the hearts of each of us who desire to live in a democratic, healthy and progressive society — Standing up bravely to a brutal regime and stating firmly: Hands off our Jews!
This statement stems from generations of civic education and the internalization of concepts such as collective responsibility and solidarity.
Let this be an extremely important educational lesson for us, and especially for the younger generation.