Portrait photograph by Judy Glickman of Jewish woman rescued by Danes

Judy Ellis Glickman is a photographer and the daughter of Dr. Irving Bennett and Louise Ellis. Her father was a noted CAlifornia pictorialist photographer in the 1930s and 1940s. She pursued photography at a young age and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1959 from the University of California at Los Angeles. She studied photography at UCLA from 1978-1985, the Maine Photographic Workshop from 1978-87, and the Portland School of Art from 1984-1985. Her grandparents emigrated to the United States at the turn of the 20th century, and her mother and grandmother in 1914. Though not a child of a Holocaust survivor, it was while visiting concentration camps in Poland in 1988 that she began to wonder how many unknown family members perished. During this trip, the work became more personal, real, and meaningful to her. She returns to Europe every year to visit and photograph Holocaust sites. She was asked by the Thanks to Scandinavia Foundation to create a photographic narrative documenting the Danish rescue effort. She has exhibited extensively and won numerous awards. Both her sons are rabbis. She is on the board of the Portland Museum of Art in Maine and is a fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in England.

Herbert Nachum Pundik was born into a Jewish family on September 23, 1927, in Copenhagen, Denmark. His father, Mendel, was born in 1898 and his mother, Eva, was born in 1903. On April 9, 1940, the Germans invaded Denmark. Life changed little for the Danes under the occupation; the Germans permitted them to retain control of domestic affairs and did not impose restrictions on the Jewish populace. On August 29, 1943, in response to increasing sabotage and violent acts of resistance against the occupation, Germany declared martial law. Herbert joined the resistance movement. Herbert was in French class at the Metropolitan School on September 29 when the principal entered and asked anyone of Jewish origin to step out. The information that the Germans were preparing to deport all the Jews in Denmark to concentration camps had been leaked. Herbert, two friends, and the teacher were told about the deportations and sent home. His father had been warned at work and had the family was packed and ready to go when Herbert arrived home. They hid in the home of a business acquaintance and on the night of October 3 left Denmark on a fishing boat; from the time the boat left Denmark until they were safe in neutral Swedish waters was 37 minutes. In 1945, Herbert volunteered with the Danish Brigade in Sweden He returned to Denmark after Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. After graduating high school in 1947, he left for Palestine in the spring of 1948 and fought in the Arab-Israeli War in 1948-1949. He then returned to Denmark for a few years, married Susie Ginzborg, emigrated to Israel in 1954, and had 3 children. His father died in 1963 at 65 years old, and his mother in 1995, at 92. His oldest son was a soldier killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

The photograph was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2010 by Judith Ellis Glickman.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Judith Ellis Glickman

Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.