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Before the Holocaust, 8.3 million Jews inhabited Europe; approximately 6 million of them became victims of the Nazi extermination plans and were either shot, died of starvation or disease in the ghettoes, or perished in concentration/extermination camps. Another million Jews emigrated from their native countries before the Shoah began, thus leaving more than 1 million who survived in Nazi-occupied territories.¹ The Jews who remained in Europe survived largely because of the courage of humanitarian gentiles who defied the Nazis by risking their lives to hide Jews in homes, attics, cellars, stables, office buildings, pigsties, cowsheds, convents, and monasteries. The risks varied considerably from country to country. This chapter focuses on two countries that represent the extreme circumstances of rescuing Jews during the Holocaust: Denmark, where anti-Semitism, when it surfaced in small extremist groups, was benign; and Poland, where anti-Semitism was virulent. Two plays that demonstrate the plights of Jews in hiding during the Shoah in Denmark and Poland, respectively, are Douglas W. Larche's Number the Stars, adapted from Lois Lowry's novel with the same title, and Julian Garner's The Flight into Egypt.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137000613_4

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