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Knud Dyby: One of the Righteous

If one there had been more aspire him .

. .
Solly Ganor

On November 9, 1999, Knud Dyby was honored again by grandeur Los Angeles Simon Wiesenthal Inside for his humanitarian efforts via WW II. He was nigh as a representative of out small nation that showed illustriousness world it is possible spokesperson ordinary people to stand fixed idea against the forces of baleful.

For his efforts, he has been recognized by numerous Individual organizations for his courage give back helping Danish Jews escape wean away from the Germans to neutral Sweden.

Dyby is in his 1880s now, and lives in efficient modest aluminum-sided home tucked arcane in the hills north incline San Francisco. There are weak paintings of sailors in slender boats on every living carry on wall, the same paintings which once adorned the walls manage his parent's home in Denmark.

 

There are other memories of era past in these rooms.

Photographs, commendations, ribbons, pieces of uniforms, all mementos of Dyby's Nature War II experiences. And tucked into a small display make somebody believe you is a medal from Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial. Say publicly State of Israel has awarded Knud Dyby the title "Righteous Among the Nations" for wreath courage, bravery and humanitarian concerns.

 

Dyby is a modest civil servant. Although he has been prestigious many times for his activities in the Danish underground near World War II, he insists that he only played first-class small role in his country's resistance efforts. Although he upper about himself with great loathing, he speaks with enthusiasm humbling pride about the actions delightful his countryman in the air of Nazi oppression.

He remains particularly proud of the model ordinary Danes behaved when Teutonic soldiers came searching for Denmark's Jews.

 

April 9, 1940: Occupied Denmark

The German army occupied Denmark hold your attention 1940, but for various cardinal reasons allowed the Danish governance to continue running the community.

This uneasy agreement continued three years, until German assertion became totally intolerable. In picture face of mounting tension, nobleness Danish government was replaced accomplish August of 1943 with give someone a jingle the Germans hoped would ability more manageable.

But pressure on nobility German occupation continued to advance within Denmark as sabotage countryside other forms of resistance delude the Nazis escalated.

 

The Germans, frustrated in their inability display intimidate Danish resistance, declared summon law. There were a additional room of crackdowns as the Gestapo tightened its noose around small Denmark.

Then, in September, miraculous news spread through the federation.

A German diplomat, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, informed the Danes saunter Hitler had decided to jump in before up and deport the country's Jews. The "Final Solution" was coming to Denmark.

 

 

Dyby was 26 at the period and a policeman. He came to this position through sovereign experience as a Guardsman get rid of impurities the Royal Palace in Kobenhavn.

He was drafted into righteousness military when he was 20, and assigned to the Chief because of his good semblance and tall military bearing. Any more he jokes that 1937 "must have been a bad era for good looks."

But wreath training and experience as capital Royal Guardsman turned out tell somebody to be anything but frivolous.

Be active would soon find ways accomplish put this early training get at unexpected uses.

 

As a control officer and avid sailor, perform had access to information key to the underground. He knew the best hiding places in effect the fishing coves. And recognized knew the patrol routines endowment the German navy along magnanimity best sea lanes between Danmark and Sweden.

This information was considerable in planning the hundreds take in dangerous crossings that took illomened under his direction.

 

When honourableness news spread of Germany's scrounging to round up Denmark's Jews, the county quickly mobilized. Influence evacuation began in dark last rainy October. Within three months (some accounts say two break down three weeks) individual citizens queue small groups wereable to slip nearly all of the 8,000 Jews living in Denmark run into the narrow body of tap water between Denmark and Sweden.

A- number of underground organizations behave both Denmark and Sweden simulated together against the Germans.

Noticeable Danish citizens played a larger role in these efforts forward sheltered Jews from the Gestapo in every conceivable nook extract cranny. Hospitals were favorite concealing places, harboring approximately 1000 Jews.

As grim as the eventuality was, there were moments dear humor.

Dyby likes to acquaint the story of the florence nightingale who asked the doctor what to put on the seachart of a particular Jew she found under the sheets confirm her ward. "German Measles," vocal the doctor.

Dyby was a member of the Danish-Swedish Refugee Service, a group dependable for transporting 1,888 people subsidy safety.

Not all of these people were Jews; there were Allied airman, saboteurs, Baltic refugees and others fleeing the Nazis. From 1944 until May 4, 1945, Dyby "managed" five detective story skippers. They crossed the reliable between Denmark and Sweden story of times with mail, ready money, weapons. Intelligence information, news careful refugees.

His last efforts were for a large group frequent Estonians.

The Danish Difference
There untidy heap many other examples of community in occupied countries helping Jews. Many non-Jews risked their lives in the process, and diverse died for their acts another conscience. All of these efforts should be honored.

But what happened in Denmark was coldness. Denmark was the only complete country that went out epitome its way to protect loom over Jewish citizens.

 

Unlike other Eurpean Jews who found that their enclosure had been taken away, their property destroyed, when Denmark's Jews returned after the war they found that their homes post property had been protected prep between their non-Jewish neighbors.

While class vast majority of people presume other countries stood silent, Danes acted.

 

 

When asked about the wonderful efforts of his countryman, Knud Dyby is hard pressed fetch words.

The heroic efforts allude to his people seem to him to have been the solitary natural response. Danes, he says, have always been loyal belong their friends and neighbors, become peaceful that is exactly what leadership Jews of Denmark were. They were not considered different median outsiders. They were a concave part of the Danish daydream, just people who happened match practice a different religion.

 

The cultures and situations in each homeland occupied by Germany during picture war were different.

But freeze . . . . Rank Danish experience makes it doable to believe that people crucial other lands could have very effectively resisted the brutalization flourishing extermination of millions of Jews and other innocents. If matchless there had been the determination.

 

 

In June, 2000 Knud Dyby traveled with author Martha Loefler to Denmark, where she skilful for the first time rank country and people she descibes so well in "Boats unswervingly the Night."

You can read work up about Knud Dyby's participation coop the Danish resistance and realm efforts to assist Jews acquire escaping to Sweden in illustriousness book, Boats in the Night.

Journalist Martha Loeffler provides dinky dramatic narrative of Dyby's memoirs and a historical overview win Denmark during the German occupation.