Countrymen

In the entire ghastly history of the Holocaust, only two "good" stories stand out, and this is one of them. Denmark, under German Occupation, but with its King and government intact, did something no other country in Western Europe even tried to do. Knowing that German command was coming in 1943 to round up their Jews (there were 7,000 of them) for deportation to the camps, they said no. The King, his ministers, and parliament were all in agreement--those 7,000 people were theirs, they were Danes who happened to be Jewish, and nobody was going to assist in their round-up and certain death. While the government used its limited but formidable powers to manoeuver and to impede matters in Berlin, the warning went out to the Jewish community that crisis was at hand. Over the next 14 days, assisted, helped, hidden, and protected by ordinary people who came together spontaneously to the aid of their countrymen who were suddenly refugees, an incredible 6,500 out of the 7,000 total escaped -- smuggled on big boats, little boats, fishing boats, anything that floated -- to Sweden. The bare facts of this exodus have been known for decades but, astonishingly, no full history of it has ever been researched or written. The refugees kept diaries, letters, family accounts which have now been brought together and form the basis of this riveting account. After a powerful historical introduction, the book follows the story on a day-by-day basis. We watch and share the heartstopping experiences of real people during those fateful two weeks from September 26 to October 9, 1943. This is a story of ordinary glory, of simple courage and moral fortitude that shines out in the terrible history of the 20th century.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Barbary States captured and held for ransom nearly five hundred American sailors. The attacks on Americans abroad—and the government’s apparent inability to control the situation—deeply scarred the public. Captives and Countrymen examines the effect of these acts on early national culture and on the new republic's conception of itself and its position in the world. Lawrence A. Peskin uses newspaper and other contemporaneous accounts—including recently unearthed letters from some of the captive Americans—to show how information about the North African piracy traveled throughout the early republic. His dramatic account reveals early concepts of national identity, party politics, and the use of military power, including the lingering impact of the Barbary Wars on the national consciousness, the effects of white slavery in North Africa on the American abolitionist movement, and the debate over founding a national navy. This first systematic study of how the United States responded to "Barbary Captivity" shows how public reaction to international events shaped America domestically and its evolving place in the world during the early nineteenth century.

Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- PART 1 CAPTIVITY AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE -- 1 Captivity and Communications -- 2 The Captives Write Home -- 3 Publicity and Secrecy -- PART 2 THE IMPACT OF CAPTIVITY AT HOME -- 4 Slavery at Home and Abroad -- 5 Captive Nation: Algiers and Independence -- 6 The Navy and the Call to Arms -- PART 3 CAPTIVITY AND THE AMERICAN EMPIRE -- 7 Masculinity and Servility in Tripoli -- 8 Between Colony and Empire -- 9 Beyond Captivity: The Wars of 1812 -- Conclusion Captivity and Globalization -- Appendix: Lists of Letters from Captives -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X, Y, Z.