Gerardo Joffe’s first love was a Danish girl. And while she didn’t survive World War II, 95 percent of her fellow Danish Jews did.
While citizens of nations such as France and Poland willingly turned over their Jews to the Nazis, the Danes just as enthusiastically saved their Jewish neighbors. Many were transported to nearby Sweden and safety. Stories abound of how Jews returned home in 1945 to discover their Danish neighbors had maintained their lawns and even took care of their pets.
With this in mind, Joffe and other Bay Area Jews have started a fund-raising effort for the Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen.
“I think the Danish people should be rewarded for the wonderful job they did with the Jewish people during World War II,” said Joffe. The San Francisco resident is founder and president of FLAME (Facts and Logic about the Middle East), a media watchdog group. A native of Germany, he fled his homeland in 1938.
“They were the only country occupied by the Germans who did anything even comparable. They were the only ones who prevented their fellow citizens from being consumed by the fires of the Holocaust.”
The museum, which should open in the fall of 2002, will be housed within the main building of central Copenhagen’s Royal Library. Renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, who designed the recently opened Jewish Museum Berlin and is the designer of the Jewish museum in San Francisco, will plot the interior layout of the 2,100-square foot Danish museum.
Joffe has begun a direct mail fund-raising campaign for the museum, and contacted several local philanthropic organizations. Last year, the Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropic Foundation donated 1 million kroner — roughly $115,000 — to the museum.
“Jews in the world need to expose their cultural history to the widest possible audience,” said Phyllis Cook, executive director of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund in San Francisco, which administers the Osher foundation and others. “Anything that enriches Jewish cultural life internationally has a value.”
Cook added that Osher’s wife, Barbro, is Swedish, and the plight of Danish Jews resonated with her personally.
While the Danish Jewish community is best known for its survival of World War II, the museum will also exhibit artifacts hearkening back to the community’s founding in 1622. Antique Torahs, portraits and silverware will be displayed alongside photos and first-hand autobiographical accounts of the war years.
While the Danish government has budgeted millions of kroner for the museum, Joffe points out that, due to the small size of Denmark’s Jewish community — just several thousand families — the nation lacks the “critical mass” of necessary Jewish fund-raisers. The museum, he says, depends upon American Jewish contributions.
“A museum is a never-ending thing. Like the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv, they always need money for running expenses,” said Joffe. “We can honor the Danish people and small but vibrant Danish Jewish community by our interest and investment in this museum.”