Following yesterday’s news that Denmark’s Prime Minister is seriously considering an apology to the Jewish people for expulsing 19 Jews from Denmark to Germany during WW2, where many were murdered in Nazi camps.
Fréttabladid asked Iceland’s Prime Minister Halldór Ásgrímsson whether he was considering a similar apology for the Jews that were expulsed from Iceland just before the war.
“Such a discussion has not taken place here in Iceland but my own opinion is that one should be careful in making apologies for something that occurred such a long time ago by the government of the time. ”
Historian Thór Whitehead has written numerous books on the war years in Iceland and says that the Icelandic government had a secret policy in not letting Jews into the country, even though they officially stated that this was because of unemployment in Iceland.
Whitehead discovered one case of a family named Rottberger expulsed from Iceland in 1938. Fortuntely, their ship made a stop over in Denmark where they were able to hide and survive.
