| WIESENTHAL CENTER CALLS UPON DENMARK TO APOLOGIZE FOR DEPORTATION OF JEWISH REFUGEES TO NAZI GERMANYDURING WORLD WAR II AND COMMEMORATE THEIR FATE The Simon Wiesenthal Center has called upon the Danish government to apologize for the deportation from Denmark toNazi Germany during the years 1941-1942 of twenty-one stateless Jewish refugees, nineteen of whom were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, a historical fact revealed ina book published last week by historian Vilhjalmur Vilhjalmsson entitled Medaljens Bagside;Joediske flytgningeskaebner IDanmark 1933-1945(The Other Side of the Coin;Jewish Refugees in Denmark1933-1945). In an op-ed published this week in the Jerusalem Post , theCenter’s Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff called upon the Danish government to issue an official apology on behalf of his country to the State of Israel and to the survivingrelatives of the refugees expelled; to find an appropriate manner in which to commemorate the fate of the victims in Copenhagen( as was done in Helsinki in memory of the Jewishrefugees deported from Finland);and to make sure that these events are incorporated into Danish history books. According to Zuroff: "Although the murder of nineteen Jews is hardly numerically significant in the context of theShoa, this episode is particularly disturbing on a symbolic level. If for decades we could console ourselves that here was at least one entire nation that acted honorably towardJews during the Holocaust, we have been stripped of that comforting illusion…[But] now that the truth has been revealed, the manner in which Copenhagen officially reacts to thedeliberate misdeeds of the Danish authorities during World War II will be a genuine test of whether the critical lessons of this tragic chapter of the history of the Holocausthave indeed been learned in Denmark." For more information call 00-972-50-7214156 |