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From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
Subject: Re: King Christian X of Denmark FALSE?! I want proof!
Date: 9 Jul 1993 10:44:04 GMT

Citing the following line in the FAQ,
->F.The king of Denmark wore a yellow star in solidarity with Jews in WWII.

sjsmith@cs.umd.edu (Stephen Joseph Smith) writes:
  -NO?!  Who debunked this and when and how?
  -

  -Story as I heard it (_Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts_, I believe) was that
  -the Nazis ordered all Jews in Denmark to wear Star of David armbands.  So
  -King Christian X ordered *all* citizens of Denmark to wear Star of David
  -armbands, declaring, "I am my country's first Jew."

Anyway, this story is debunked in

        "R}ttan i Pizzan"  (The Rat in the Pizza)
        by Bengt af Klintberg
        Pan, 1986, 1990        (last copyright year is probably paperback)
        ISBN 91-1-893831-0

Basically, the Germans never issued the order that Danish Jews should wear a Star-of-David badge during WWII. The Danish govt. advised against it and somehow they complied. No order, no need for the King to do his stunt.

The above is courtesy of the maintainer of the AFU European archive, Haakon Styri.

Terry "Didn't Don McLean write a song about that?" Chan

More debunking and information:

From: cindy@nvg.unit.no (Cindy Kandolf)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Christian X and the Star of David
Date: 20 Oct 1996 08:14:53 GMT

Mary Campbell (cc688@FreeNet.Carleton.CA) writes:
|   I've come across a de-bunking of a story that I had always accepted as
|   true, and am curious to know how the story started.  
|   
|   I've just been to an exhibit commemmorating a mass escape of Danish Jews
|   from Nazi-occupied Denmark to neutral Sweden, organized by the Danish
|   resistance. 
|   
|   One of the posters in the exhibit mentions the story that Christian X,
|   then King of Denmark, when told by the Nazis that Danish Jews must wear
|   the Star of David, said that he and his family would wear the Star of
|   David also. 
|   
|   I've heard this story before, always presented as fact, but according to
|   this poster the story is a "myth" and Christian X said no such thing (no
|   other information is supplied).
|   
|   The exhibit was put together by the Danish National Museum and the Museum
|   of Danish Resistance 1940-1945, who presumably should know what they're
|   talking about.

Earlier this year a book was published in Denmark, based on interviews with Queen Margrete. She also said the story was false in that book - the family was flattered and all that, but her grandfather Christian did no such thing. [For the direct quote, see below--ehk]

In fact, the Danish Jews never did have to wear the star while in Denmark. Those who were sent to concentration camps were forced to wear the star at the camps. (The story about most Danish Jews being helped to safety in Sweden is, fortunately, quite true.)

|   So -- if this is indeed a UL, does anyone know how it got started, and by
|   whom?

It's never easy and generally not possible to say who started such legends. We may be able to say that the earliest published source appears to be X, but the person who wrote X probably heard it from somewhere else. It's not impossible that this story grows out of Allied war propaganda, which not surprisingly was written to make Allied countries and their leaders look like a real great bunch of folks. Truth sometimes gets stretched in war... Or it could have grown out of the fact that Danes had a great deal of pride in and affection for Christian X. Compared to some of the leaps we see in urban folklore, "If the Jews here had been made to wear yellow stars, the King would have worn one, too!" isn't far from "The Jews were made to wear yellow stars, so the King wore one, too!"

One variant of the story states that the King wasn't really wearing a star, but a yellow flower in his lapel. This parallels a real incident in Norway, and there may have been a similar incident in Denmark for all i know. In Norway the royal family left the country. (As did the government, which means that the Norwegian armed forces surrendered, but not the Norwegian government or state - an interesting little twist that makes Norwegian war history a bit more complicated.) Not unrelatedly, all public expressions of support for the royal family were banned. However, on King Haakon's 70th birthday, a large number of men wore flowers in their lapels (as they would have if the King had been home) and were arrested as a result. The flower-in-the-lapel story seemed to have jumped the Kattegat and blended in with the King-wearing-yellow-star story. Maybe.

Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 22:04:54 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Cindy Kandolf <cindy@nvg.unit.no>

The topic of King Christian X (of Denmark) and the yellow stars came up on s.c.n this week. Is this quote perhaps one for the archives? (Queen Margrethe is Christian X's granddaughter. She was a small child during the war.)

flodmum

From: Stan Brown <stbrown@nacs.net>
Subject: Yellow Stars (was Re: Denmark during WW2)
Date: Sun, 26 May 1996 12:03:02 -0400

> I also thought that Jews were required to wear stars, but that the King 
> himself put on a star, as did many others, and therefore that the star 
> identification system of the Nazis failed?

I submitted this to Antti for the FAQ, but I'm not sure whtehre it has been incorporated yet:

On page 14 of Queen in Denmark by Anne Wolden-R5thinge (Gyldendal, 1989, ISBN 87-01-08622-7 and 87-01-08623-5), HM Queen Margrethe II says:

"One of the stories one often hears about the Occupation, and which I persist in denying each time I hear it, is the story about Christian X wearing the yellow star of David as a demonstration during the Occupation. It is a beautiful and symbolic story, but it is not true. I do not mind it existing or being told, but I will not support a myth, even a good one, when I know it isn't true, it would be dishonest. But the moral behind the story is a far better one for Denmark than if the King _had_ worn the star. The fact of the matter is that the Germans never did dare insist that Danish Jews wear the yellow star. This is a credit to Denmark which our country has cause to be proud of: I think this is an important fact to remember. The myth about the King wearing the star of David, well, I can imagine that this could have originated from a typical remark by a Copenhagen errand boy on his bicycle: 'If they try to enforce the yellow star here, the King will be the first to wear it!' -- I don't know whether this was the actual remark, but I imagine it could have been how the myth started. It is certainly a possible explanation I offer whenever I am asked. To me, the truth is an even greater honour for our country than the myth."