The Danish World

Abstract

The main Jewish cemetery in Copenhagen announces its identity with a discreet marble plaque by the gate. A visitor can easily miss it, as I did on my first visit there in 1996; my eyes were drawn instead to the chapel, a small brick building about fifty yards away down a broad gravel walkway. The walk is lined with tall evergreens, and in between them small sidepaths lead into the quiet rows of graves. I spent a peaceful hour ambling through the grid of gravel pathways, under a clear July sun, and didn’t notice the plaque until I was on my way out. It didn’t matter, though; even if I hadn’t seen it, I could never have doubted where I had been. Two features distinguished the cemetery immediately, making it impossible to confuse with any ordinary Danish graveyard. One was the Jewish symbolism. Many of the gravestones had both Hebrew and Danish inscriptions, and Stars of David appeared where ordinary Danish stones would have had crosses. Holocaust imagery was there as well, with granite memorial markers commemorating Danish and Polish victims of the Nazi genocide.