Imagine it being a crime to open your door to someone being hunted.
A child. A woman. A family.
Their crime? Being Jewish.
During World War II, hiding Jews could cost you your freedom. In parts of Nazi-occupied Europe, especially Poland, it could cost you your life. In some cases, the Nazis killed entire families for helping. The children, too. That was the consequence of refusing to hand human beings over to their murderers.
You were supposed to look a terrified person in the eye and close the door. Then go back inside and have dinner while the hunt for them continued.
I don’t think I could have done that.
I believe I would have joined the resistance. Hidden people. Helped them escape. And yes, that’s easy to say today. I’ve never had the Gestapo at my door. I don’t know what that fear would have done to me. But I feel it in my bones: I couldn’t live with myself if I handed over a child to save my own skin.
Here in Denmark, people opened their homes and helped Jewish families escape to Sweden when the Nazis began rounding them up in October 1943. They acted while they still had something to lose.
Those are the people we honor today.
But what good is our admiration for their courage if we can’t find the backbone to speak up ourselves?
Jews are being attacked again in our part of the world. In Europe. In Australia. In Canada. In the United States.
In 2025, people were killed at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach, at a synagogue in Manchester, and outside the Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. In Ottawa, an elderly Jewish woman was stabbed in a grocery store in broad daylight in an attack police considered hate-motivated.
People celebrating their faith. Attending an event. Buying groceries.
What the hell are they supposed to answer for?
A Jewish person in a Canadian grocery store doesn’t owe anyone an explanation for Israel’s policies. But antisemitism isn’t just about Israel or its government. It also lives on through rotten old conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the media, the banks, and the entire world. Ideas people keep alive because they watched a clip on YouTube and now think they’ve figured everything out.
No. You haven’t uncovered some hidden truth. You’ve swallowed an old lie and started spreading it. And you’re gambling with other people’s safety.
We’re not living in 1943. But we inherited a responsibility from that time. And we betray it every time our condemnation of antisemitism comes with a “but.”
I’m sick of solemn speeches about “never again” from people who can’t bring themselves to stand up for living Jews.
It’s easy to admire the people who opened their doors back then.
What matters is what you do when someone needs you now.
I know where I stand. With the Jewish people’s right to live freely and safely. And I’m not moving.