HELSINKI (AP) — Israeli and Danish dignitaries are marking the 75th anniversary of the daring rescue of more than 7,000 Jews from Denmark by boat to neighboring Sweden during World War II.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen paid tribute to the events of October 1943 on Thursday in ceremonies at the small fishing town of Gilleleje, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Copenhagen.
Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany from April 1940 to May 1945. It's one of the few European countries whose Jewish population was largely saved from the Holocaust.
About 7,200 Jews, or 95 percent of Denmark's Jewish population, and some 700 of their non-Jewish relatives managed to escape by crossing the narrow waterway from Gilleleje and other coastal spots to neutral Sweden.
