Two large German vessels were damaged last night in Copenhagen harbor while they were being prepared to transport Danish Jews to Germany, it was reported by the Swedish radio today. The broadcast also stated that clashes have broken out between Danish non-Jews and German police at Hellerup, north of Copenhagen, as a result of protests by the population against the Nazi round-up of Jews which is continuing throughout Denmark.
As a protest against the deportation of Danish Jews, the rector of Copenhagen University and its governing board have decided to close the university for one week “in view of the disasters that have overtaken Danish fellow-citizens during the last few days.” A pastoral letter issued by Danish Bishops condemning the anti-Jewish brutalities of the Nazis was read yesterday in all churches throughout Denmark, while in Sweden clergymen held prayers for the persecuted Danish Jews.
Danish workers demonstrated their opposition to the Nazi expulsion of the Jews by blowing up a Nazi-controlled iron foundry and a rubber tire factory at Hilleroed. Meanwhile, Gestapo units, aided by the pro-Nazi Danish Volunteer Corps, today continued the mass-arrests of Jews under the supervision of Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Gestapo, who arrived from Berlin to personally “liquidate” all the Jews in Denmark.
Despite the fact that the Nazis have posted German police every hundred yards along the Danish frontier to seal escape routes for the fleeing Jews, more than 1,000 Jews have reached Sweden during the past three days. The latest arrivals report that the Nazis have arrested Jewish mothers with two-month-old babies. Among those arrested are 90-year-old invalids. Jewish patients are being dragged from hospitals and driven to the harbor where they are herded into a ship for deportation to a German port. The arrests and accompanied by plundering and brutalities which exceed the horror under which the Jews of Norway were arrested and deported some time ago.
Swedish authorities today announced over the radio that the influx of hundreds of Jewish refugees from Denmark continues despite the measures which the Gestapo has taken to make flight into Sweden impossible. “The influx during the week end had necessitated a readjustment of Swedish plans for caring for the refugees,” the broadcast stated. The non-Jewish coastal population in Denmark is doing all it can to help Danish Jews escape to Sweden, refugees arriving here today declared.
The Swedish press today asks why the German Government has not replied to the formal offer made by the Swedish Government to admit all Danish Jews into Sweden in order to prevent their deportation to the Reich. The Finnish radio today openly condemned the German terror campaign against the Jews in Denmark.
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