The Power Of Conscience: The Danish Resistance And the Rescue Of the Jews

In the dark annals of the Holocaust, Danish resistance to Nazi tyranny and their rescue of Jewish citizens is a blessed shaft of sunlight. When the Nazis invaded and occupied Denmark in April of 1940, Danes responded in a spiraling cycle of resistance and sabotage. After the Nazis ordered the roundup of Danish Jews in 1943, citizens from all walks of life launched a massive effort to smuggle Jews by boat and other transport to the neutral country of Sweden. This was often done at considerable personal risk. In the end, most Danish Jews were spared the horrors of the concentration camps. The Power of Conscience mixes vintage footage with the testimony of inadequately identified witnesses. The documentary needs a tighter focus, and the attempt to cover so much ground in a short time makes the film seem sketchy. The result, I'm afraid, may bore students and confuse viewers unfamiliar with Danish history and politics. Holocaust documentaries should never be boring. Perhaps the Danes are unduly modest, but one wants to know more about their motives and why they were willing to risk everything, particularly when citizens of other "civilized" countries didn't do the same. We don't need phony histrionics, but the film is curiously inert and undramatic, noticeably so when compared to the powerful first person histories on view at Washington's National Holocaust Museum. This is an adequate, but not exceptional addition to holocaust collections. An optional purchase. (S. Rees)