Mittwoch, 25. März 2026, 18:30 - 20:00

VWI, Rabensteig 3, 1010 Wien

Denmark is often portrayed as a light in the darkness of the Holocaust, since 98 per cent of Danish Jews survived persecution, most of them in exile in neighbouring Sweden. Yet the memory of rescue in Denmark has been shaped by distortions and silences that continue to inform national as well as international historiography. A culture of remembrance centred on the rescuers rather than the victims, and embedded within a celebratory national narrative of the Resistance, has pushed the Holocaust as a shared European and Jewish catastrophe to the margins.

In this lecture, Sofie Lene Bak disentangles myth from documented historical reality and examines how established patterns of remembrance have weakened Danish society’s capacity to recognise and confront antisemitism. In doing so, she illuminates the complex relationship between Holocaust experience and memory, and the conditions under which antisemitism persists.

Sofie Lene Bak is Associate Professor of Modern History at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Director of the forthcoming research centre, the National Forum for Antisemitism Studies, to be inaugurated at the University of Copenhagen in 2026. She is a former curator at the Danish Jewish Museum and has published numerous books and articles on the history of antisemitism, Danish Jewish history, and the Holocaust. In addition to her academic work, she is deeply engaged in public dissemination, contributing to the development of television documentaries and educational textbooks, as well as actively participating in public debate.

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Photo: Four Jewish siblings just after their arrival to Sweden, October 1943 © Museum of Danish Resistance