Approaching Rescue Efforts in Nazi-Occupied Europe as Social Movements.

This paper will compare cases of rescue in Nazi-occupied Denmark, France, and the Netherlands, asking why collectively organized rescue operations emerged to save persecuted groups at certain times and in certain locales, while elsewhere rescues were absent or initiated by individuals acting alone. In the early fall of 1943, the threat of deportation of Danish Jewry provoked something resembling a popular movement, involving all parts and strata of society in a successful effort to bring the 7,000 Danish Jews to safety in Sweden. Previous explanations have revolved predominantly around individual altruism, ?national character,? and responses to genocidal policies at the level of the nation state. Comparing the Danish case to the community-based rescue effort in the French village of Le Chambon and to individually initiated rescues in the Dutch city of Amsterdam, this project will focus specifically on the level of collective action. Drawing on the literatures on moral exclusion and mobilization, it will place particular emphasis on interpretive dynamics of constituency-building and the structure and quality of social networks conducive to high-risk, clandestine mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]