Tove Bamberger (née Schonbaum) was born in Copenhagen in 1934 and raised as a secular Jew. When the Germans invaded Denmark in April 1940, life in the country continued largely unchanged until September 1943, when Hitler issued a deportation order for all Danish Jews. Tove’s family, along with 95% of Danish Jews, fled to Sweden on a fishing boat. Tove attended a Danish school set up for the refugees in Sweden, and when the war ended her family returned to their home in Copenhagen. There, she married Niels Bamberger, who had experienced the same rescue and return. In 1955, after Tove’s high school graduation, Tove and Niels immigrated, settling in Washington Heights, New York, where they raised two daughters.
Tove will discuss her story of escape and return, her life in Sweden, and what her life was like after World War II in this Danish Rescue Stories Survive program.
This program is a part of the Museum’s series of programming around our upcoming exhibition Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark, the Museum’s first exhibition for visitors 9 and up about the incredible story of the Danish Rescue.