WWII occupied Europe- more countries save their Jews

OK, how could the experience of more occupied European countries during WWII have been similar to that of Denmark & Noway in managing to save the vast m,ajority of their Jewish ppl from the Nazis ?
 
OK, how could the experience of more occupied European countries during WWII have been similar to that of Denmark & Noway in managing to save the vast m,ajority of their Jewish ppl from the Nazis ?

This concerns Western Europe rather than central/Eastern parts.
Saving the Jews in Denmark was mainly possible because of 3 factors:
1) Geography. A neutral unoccupied country (Sweden) was just beyond a narrow body of water (Denmark) resp. behind an extremely long, rugged, undefendable border (Norway)
2) Numbers. It is easier to organise the transfer of 2000 people than of 200000. It is also easier to convince the country that accepts the refugees to accept them in the first place.
3) Bloodless takeover of the country. The Danish government functioned for quite a while without much interference from the occupation troops. This allowed for all the preparations that needed to be taken for transportation of refugees to proceed uninterfered.

Now a similar situation existed along the Swiss borders, as well as along the Spanish-French border. For Switzerland, pissing off Germany too much would be a suicide attempt to a larger extent than for Sweden (no defense depth etc.). Some degree of antisemitism played a role as well but not more than in other European countries of the time. This, coupled with a far larger number of Jewish refugees for whom Switzerland would be accessible, was indeed a problem.
Spain had leaned towards the Axis in Europe, politically as well as economically, but could afford to piss off Hitler up to a certain degree. Thus quite a lot of Jewish refugees went over that border, illegally but purposefully ingored by the Spanish border guards. Switzerland also reached an understanding with Spain to "forward" Jewish refugees on sealed trains from Geneva to Arun, but this was put an end to by the Vichy government. Nevertheless, France is the country in Western Europe with the highest survival rate of Jews during WW2, also due to Spanish border escape.

So we need
- a different pattern of conquest and occupation by Wehrmacht
and/or
- a different attitude by neutral countries

I can imagine that a mass escape along the Danish lines might be possible from Belgium or Northern France to UK if the latter were more accomodating, and if Belgium/Northern France fell Denmark-like instead of the way it happened IRL. However it would only save the Jews of the coastal towns - any other mass movement would alert the occupation troops. Even then, crossing the Channel from Belgium to UK is a far more complicated mater than crossing the Belt from Copenhagen to Malmö.

In the East it is different as the Jews made up a major portion of the Polish population. Try as I might, I cannot envision pre-Barbarossa Soviet Union accepting a million or two of Polish citizens as refugees. If they do, it will be a one-way ticket to a Siberian mining camp with 50% survival rate. A small improvement on Auschwitz, but that's all one can say.
 
This concerns Western Europe rather than central/Eastern parts.
I would say that Eastern and Western Europe share one key trait, as far as saving of Jews is concerned: unwillingness to give a damn. Remember, those were times when Brits refused Romanian Jews entry to Palestine, Canadian rep in Evian declared that "One Jewish refugee is too many" and USA refused entry to it's soil and pressured its Latin American marionettes to accept as few as possible. You need to do something about this poisonous attitude first, as IOTL there was at least 1.5 years gap between the moment when fate of European Jewry became painfully obvious (Autumn 1939, ghettoes in Poland, and I'm charitable here not picking Kristallnacht as the starting point) and the moment when the door slammed shut (Summer 1941). And, even after Summer 1941, a lot could be done, as far as French, Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Yugoslav Jewry is concerned.

In the East it is different as the Jews made up a major portion of the Polish population. Try as I might, I cannot envision pre-Barbarossa Soviet Union accepting a million or two of Polish citizens as refugees. If they do, it will be a one-way ticket to a Siberian mining camp with 50% survival rate. A small improvement on Auschwitz, but that's all one can say.
Say whatever you want about Stalin, but he didn't turn a single Polish Jewish refugee back. His willingness to accept millions haven't been tested, that much is true, but "hundred of thousands" is probably about right. And, worst come to worst, Jewish refugees were subjected to "special settlement" regime, not Gulag, and their mortality were more in line with Soviet civvies (who experienced serious food shortages during WWII), not Gulag prisoners. It was more than for ordinary civvies, that's for sure. Refugee in starving foreign country isn't going to have it nice and easy.
 
You need to do something about this poisonous attitude first [...].

I have to agree. However, somehow, at least in Denmark there was a willingness in a big part of the general population to support the escape of the Jews, the willingness on the side of the government to turn a blind eye to these preparations (I will not believe nobody in the Danish government knew about this) and willingness of the Swedish government to not deport the Jews out of hand. These factors were not present in any other pair of countries except, to the extent you described, in the Soviet Union.

Say whatever you want about Stalin, but he didn't turn a single Polish Jewish refugee back. His willingness to accept millions haven't been tested, that much is true, but "hundred of thousands" is probably about right. And, worst come to worst, Jewish refugees were subjected to "special settlement" regime, not Gulag, and their mortality were more in line with Soviet civvies (who experienced serious food shortages during WWII), not Gulag prisoners. It was more than for ordinary civvies, that's for sure. Refugee in starving foreign country isn't going to have it nice and easy.

From what I heard they were not treated as Gulag prisoners but rather similar to the minorities that were forcibly resettled into some middle of nowhere in Kazakhstan - Volga Germans, diverse Caucasus nationalities etc. who had death rates by "resettlement" well into double-digit numbers.

Of course if you are a refugee and your host country is starving your expectation should rather be very low.
 
History

Forgive me, but once again, the focus of history in the West is on the West. Bulgaria was actually a shining beacon to the world when it came to the treatment of its Jews. The Church and the people never allowed the legal restrictions on the Jewish Bulgarians to 'take'. Jews in Sofia felt secure enough to protest - violently - when an order for the expulsion of Jews from the capital was announced. Their protests were supported by protests by the non-Jewish population, as well. Though nearly 20,000 were expelled from Sofia, they weren't gone long, and the order was rescinded.

No Jews from Bulgaria proper were deported. Yes - they allowed Jews from Bulgarian-occupied Macedonia and Thrace to be deported, but no Jew from "Old Bulgaria" was harmed, and the Jewish population of this Balkan nation was the same after the war as before. Considering that Bulgaria was surrounded by the Axis, this is a remarkable accomplishment.

The Albanian people, as well, protected their Jews. Luckily, they were under Italian control for a good long time, and the Italians were notorious in German circles for protecting Croatian, Serbian, and Albanian Jews - but even after the Italian collapse, the majority of the Albanian people never went along with the persecution of their neighbours.
 
Forgive me, but once again, the focus of history in the West is on the West. Bulgaria was actually a shining beacon to the world when it came to the treatment of its Jews.
I'm sorry for being not clear enough, Bulgaria can give Danes an example of how to treat Jews during WWII. They did more than they could under the circumstances. What I meant by including Bulgaria in the list was that, provided that Allies were willing to accept Jews, Bulgaria could be used as conduit to Turkey (which IOTL refused Jewish refugees for fear of being overwhelmed, as well as bowing to British pressure).
 
Say whatever you want about Stalin, but he didn't turn a single Polish Jewish refugee back
Stalin did hand over Jews to Gestapo after 1939 MR treaty and invasion of Poland.
Examples include Margarete Buber-Neumann, or Hans Walter David. The number of Jewish communists handed over is IIRC around several hundred to thousand.
 
Stalin did hand over Jews to Gestapo after 1939 MR treaty and invasion of Poland.
Examples include Margarete Buber-Neumann, or Hans Walter David. The number of Jewish communists handed over is IIRC around several hundred to thousand.
If you want to get technical, Buber-Neumann was German Jew, and I wrote about Polish ones. Yes, Stalin handed over some KPD activists to Gestapo, including Jews. Shame on him for that. However, en masse Jewish refugees were not turned back.
 
From what I heard they were not treated as Gulag prisoners but rather similar to the minorities that were forcibly resettled into some middle of nowhere in Kazakhstan - Volga Germans, diverse Caucasus nationalities etc. who had death rates by "resettlement" well into double-digit numbers.

Of course if you are a refugee and your host country is starving your expectation should rather be very low.

I'm pretty certain that Stalin wanted to create a Jewish homeland in the wilds of Siberia. There's a map here (post 366 is brilliant as well)

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/333-next-year-in-birobidzhan-stalins-siberian-zion/
 
I'm pretty certain that Stalin wanted to create a Jewish homeland in the wilds of Siberia.
Birobidjan saga isn't really linked to a story of EE Jewish refugees in Soviet Union. To the best of my knowledge, there wasn't any serious effort to send refugees to the Jewish Autonomy. They were more or less spread across USSR, cortesy of fate more than any settlement effort.
 
OK, how could the experience of more occupied European countries during WWII have been similar to that of Denmark & Noway in managing to save the vast m,ajority of their Jewish ppl from the Nazis ?

During World War two, Denmark had a fairly small Jewish community
(easier to evacuate), a favorable geographic situation (most simply were ferried across to neutral Sweden), and a rather looser German occupation than, say, France, with civil institutions left relatively intact and less Nazi interference (makes it easier to get them out unhindered). Most nations under german occupation were not quite so fortunate.
 
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