The program "Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats"
will
honor diplomats from many countries who helped save Jews and other
refugees during the Holocaust. The exhibit features German diplomats
Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz and Gerhard Feine.
Organized by the Institute for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in
the Holocaust, the exhibit will open at Ellis Island and Statue of
Liberty Museum on March 30, 2008. Many of the families of diplomats
will be attending, including the families of Raoul Wallenberg, Carl
Lutz, Chiune Sugihara, Hiram Bingham and others. The program will
honor the families of the diplomats and the Holocaust survivors who
were helped by them. A special part of the exhibit that will be shown
for the first time will honor American rescuers who saved Jews during
the Holocaust. This portion of the exhibit will include the story
of the War Refugee Board, the American Friends' Service Committee
(Quakers), the Unitarian Service Committee, the American Jewish Joint
Distribution Committee, and other important organizations.
For more information:  More
Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz (September 29, 1904,
in Bremen - February
16, 1973) was a German attache who warned the Danish Jews about
their
intended deportation in 1943. It is estimated that he prevented
the deportation of all but 7% of Denmark's Jews in the resulting
rescue of the Danish Jews.
In 1939 he was assigned to the German embassy in Copenhagen as a
maritime attache. After 1942, Duckwitz worked with the Nazi Reich
representative Werner Best. On September 11, 1943, Best told Duckwitz
about the intended roundup of all Danish Jews on October 1. Two
weeks later Duckwitz flew to Stockholm, ostensibly to discuss the
passage of German merchant ships. While there, he contacted Prime
Minister Per Albin Hansson and asked whether Sweden would be willing
to receive Danish Jewish refugees. In a couple of days, Hansson
promised them favourable reception.
Back in Denmark on September 28, Duckwitz contacted Danish social
democrat Hans Hedtoft and notified him of the intended deportation.
Hedtoft warned the head of the Jewish community C.B. Henriques and
the acting chief rabbi Dr. Marcus Melchior, who spread the warning.
Sympathetic Danes in all walks of life organized a mass escape of
over 6000 Jews over the sea to Sweden. Duckwitz, apparently assuming
that he had done verything he could and possibly fearing exposure
to Gestapo, went back to his official duties. After the war, Duckwitz
remained in the German Foreign Service. In 1955-1958 he served as
West German ambassador to Denmark. On March 21, 1971, the Israeli
government named him Righteous Among the Nations and included him
in the Yad Vashem memorial.
Gerhard Feine (June 17, 1894, in Göttingen
- April 9, 1959 in Kopenhagen) was assigned to the embassy in Budapest/Hungary
and helped saving thousands of Jews from deportation to Auschwitz
in 1944. From 1945 to 1946 he was in British captivity. After six
years in the judiciary service he returned to the Foreign Service
in 1953, representing the Federal Republic of Germany at the United
Nations and other international organizations in Geneva/Switzerland.
From 1956 to 1958 he was appointed head of the German mission to
the
European Council in Straßbourg/France before he served as
ambassador in
Kopenhagen/Denmark until his death in 1959.
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