Gestapo Arrests Danish Professors for Protesting Against Deportations of Jews

A number of non-Jewish professors of Copenhagen University were arrested by the Gestapo yesterday following the decision of the rector and the governing board to close the university for one week as an expression of protest against the German mass-arrests of Danish Jews, it was learned here today.

Jews are continuing to escape from Denmark to Sweden by swimming during the night across the narrow waters separating these two countries. Many of them arrive naked, while others were drowned when caught in German fire after being spotted by German patrol boats. The bodies of a number of Jews were washed ashore and picked up by Swedish police officials. The Dagens Nyheter reports that about 1,700 Danish Jews have reached here safely.

The refugees who succeeded in reaching Sweden today told a horrible story of how the German police entered the Jewish Home for Aged in Copenhagen and dragged out all inmates including men and women from seventy to ninety years old. The aged Jews were herded into two trucks, but a Danish saboteur succeeded in assassinating the Gestapo driver of one of the trucks and freed the Jews.

ALL JEWISH PROPERTY IN DENMARK WILL BE CONFISCATED

Anger is mounting in Sweden as new reports reach here from Denmark describing the German brutalities. The Gestapo is now compiling lists of Jewish property in Denmark for confiscation, one of the reports stated. The German authorities have also issued an order instructing officials of the Danish radio corporation and of other Danish institutions to prove their “Aryanship.” At the same time they have started arresting so-called “half-Aryans” who have only one “Aryan” parent.”

The various reports from Denmark reaching here confirm that two of the three German ships which were being prepared in Copenhagen harbor to carry the deported Danish Jews to Germany have been sunk by Danish saboteurs. The third ship is said to have left for a Baltic port carrying 1,800 Jews, including Denmark’s oldest woman, Madame T. Exiere, the mother of a professor at the University of Copenhagen.

The Jewish refugees reaching Sweden are being placed in hotels and also lodged in private homes in southern towns. A convalescent home in Malmoe has been converted into a temporary shelter for the refugees. The Swedish Red Cross is also placing the refugees on country estates and has received many of them in Red Cross institutions.

Among the refugees who succeeded in reaching Swedish territory are a number of young Jewish boys and girls from Germany and Poland who were receiving training for agricultural work in Palestine on one of the farms in Denmark established for this purpose by Jewish relief organizations. Though the Swedish authorities indicated to Germany that they were willing to admit only Danish Jews, no difficulties have been made for these Jewish youths.

SWEDISH ATTITUDE IS “IMPUDENT” AND “PROVOCATIVE,” BERLIN SAYS

The Stockholm radio, in an English- language broadcast directed to North America today, said that “no German answer has yet been received to the Swedish intervention for the benefit of the Danish Jews” but that Berlin correspondents of Swedish newspapers had “indicated that an answer may be expected.” At the same time the official German news agency, Deutsche Nachrichten Bureau, disseminated a report attacking the attitude of the Swedish authorities as “impudent” and ” provocative.”

“The measures against the Jews in Denmark are long overdue,” DNB declares. “The hysterical attitude of the Swedish press in connection with these measures is inspired by Jewish money. The hospitality which Sweden is offering to the Danish Jews is no proof of solidarity between Sweden and Denmark, but a demonstration of the extent to which Swedish and Danish Jews are pulling wires against Germany in the Scandinavian countries. We consider the Swedish reaction impudent and provocative. As to the Swedish newspapers, they would act more honestly if they were to state openly that the time has come for them to side with the Anglo-Americans.”

GESTAPO PLANNED DEPORTATION OF DANISH JEWS A MONTH AGO

The Dagens Nyheter states today that Gestapo agents had begun seizure of the birth, death and marital records of Jewish communities in Denmark more than a month ago.

“Nazi preparations for the attack on the Jews of Denmark began August 31,” the paper says, “when three armed, Danish-speaking persons forced female clerks at the central offices of the Jewish Religious Community to surrender the records of the community’s vital statistics. Danish police immediately reported this encroachment to Gen. Hermann Von Hanheken, German commandant, but the Nazi General insisted he knew nothing about it.

“On September 17, armed Gestapo agents raided the Jewish religious administration’s office, arresting the community’s librarian at prayer and later searching the synagogue and homes of principal members of the community,” the Stockholm paper continues. “Lists of members of the various congregations and lists of refugees being sheltered in Denmark were seized on this occasion, but once again Von Hanneken denied knowledge of the affair. Wernner Best, German Minister to Denmark, however, admitted Nazi action the next day. He attempted to explain that the only purpose of the seizure was to ascertain if the Mosaic community had papers proving that Danish Jews who were already under arrest were not connected with illegal activities.”

The Swedish radio, in a broadcast from Stockholm today, said that “the cruel Jewish persecutions in Denmark have absorbed the attention of the entire Swedish press.” It quoted the prominent newspaper Uppsala Ny Tidning as writing: “The fleeing Jews who now reach our coasts may feel that they have come to a Nordic brotherhood and to take refuge until it will be possible for them to return to a free and independent Denmark.”