What Every American Should Know About Europe

by Melissa Rossi

  Touchy Areas: In the darkness of October 1, 1943, Danish fishermen ferried some 8,000 Jews to Sweden via a secret boat lift—that much is fact. The rest is hard to pin down. Some say Jews were forced to pay large sums and that some fishermen became quite wealthy from what was painted solely as a humanitarian effort. Another touchy bit of history: at war’s end, the Allies were loathe to count Denmark as having been on their side, but Danish diplomats struck a deal. Denmark would be remembered as part of the Allied forces if the U.S. could set up more military bases on Greenland. Four U.S. military bases shot up on Greenland, and Denmark went down as an ally.

  GREENLAND

  Iceland is green, and Greenland is icy, as the saying goes—and Greenland (with a population of 50,000, mostly Inuit fishermen) lives up to the description. The ice-capped land holds 10 percent of the planet’s water, tons of PCBs and radioactive waste—legacies of U.S. military bases there (Thule Air Force Base remains)—and an ongoing source of local anger at Denmark, which invited the United States to build the bases. That was a costly move—starting with the fact that the U.S. ignored Denmark’s demands that nuclear bombs would not be transported over Greenland or stored there.

  1953: Inuit people were shoved out to make way for Thule U.S. Air Force Base, the most northerly U.S. military post—good for spying on Soviets; decades later, the Danish government forked over $70,000 in reparations for taking away Inuit villages and hunting grounds.

  1968: According to declassified U.S. government documents, a B-52 carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed near Thule, releasing at least one pound (and up to twenty-four pounds) of dead plutonium; one hydrogen bomb was never found.

  1995: The Thule cleanup crew for the nuclear accident, many sick with cancer, sued the Danish government, settling for over $15 million.

  2006: The U.S. awarded Raytheon a contract to set up advanced radar systems on Greenland as part of its national missile defense scheme, which makes locals shudder.

  Denmark granted the island more autonomy in 1979, but many Greenlanders demand total independence, complete with mineral rights, since loads of oil may sit offshore. While looking for petroleum, perhaps they can find that stray H-bomb.

  Hot Spots

  Copenhagen: In the elegant waterfront capital that is home to harbor, canals, Tivoli Gardens, drug-free Christiania, and half a million Danes, property prices are rising as land grows scarce, and fear levels are up in the normally easygoing, pedestrian-oriented, and fashionable city. Still, Copenhageners know how to party, and new districts of cafés, clubs, and pubs are shooting up everywhere, including in the former red-light district Nørvebo. Word to the wise: it’s easy to meet beautiful Danes while out on the town, but don’t break into “Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen,” or you’ll hear about the Danny Kaye “scandal” for hours.

  Rising above the sea in Helsingør, Kronborg Castle was Shakespeare’s inspiration for Hamlet’s Elsinore.

  Danish prisons: Is it that many guards are women, that inmates take anger management courses, or that the lodgings don’t have bathrooms? Whatever the reasons, the few Danes who end up in prison tend to not stay long (most are in for less than a year), and relatively few come back (a 27 percent return rate).3

  THE BRIDGE

  Denmark is the physical, mental, and political bridge to the rest of Europe—more so since the 2000 opening of the Oresund Bridge that links Malmö, Sweden, to Copenhagen, Denmark—from which one can zip down to Germany. The $4 billion double-decker bridge, a joint venture of Danish and Swedish governments, carries a hefty toll of $35 per one-way crossing—convincing many commuters to stick with the ferry. Unexpected side effects have transpired, however; thousands of Danes are moving to Malmö, where housing is cheaper (by half) and Danes who want to marry foreigners can skip the immigration hoops.

  Jutland: A peninsula surrounded by Denmark’s 400 islands, Jutland protrudes from north Germany, and is known for white beaches, windsurfing, and music festivals. The biggest draw: Legoland, a fantasy theme park made entirely of Lego toys, including the train.

  Faeroe Islands: The twenty-two islands lying between the Shetlands and Iceland were yanked into the family by Vikings, and they’re still populated by sheepherders and fishermen, many of whom want independence, but that might be a dream; Denmark’s subsidies are needed to keep the place running. On the other hand, oil may be gurgling offshore, so they might be able to make it handsomely on their own, should Denmark decide to let them go.

  Who knew? The Faeroes are home to the world’s longest continuously running parliament, which first started deliberation back in the tenth century.4

  Hotshots

  The Danish royal family: Beloved head of state Queen Margrethe, famous for tossing back her head in a hearty laugh, is also a respected painter and illustrator of children’s books. Like his mom, Crown Prince Frederik mingles with the masses. During his playboy years he was known as the “Turbo Prince,” often spotted dancing in bars with a fetching model draped on his arm. In 2004, he married Mary Donaldson, a Tasmanian lawyer who isn’t a model but who looks like one; no word on if they had to pay the new $8,000 marriage-to-a-foreigner fee. Prince Joachim married lovely Princess Alexandra, of Austrian-English-Polish-Chinese heritage—the first person of Asian extraction to marry a European royal—who learned the decidedly difficult Danish language in about six seconds, and soon produced two male heirs, although that took slightly longer. Alas, they recently divorced.

  Anders “Fogh” Rasmussen: Prime minister, 2001–present. His sensationalist “Time for a Change” campaign hit the panic button, getting the conservative Venstre leader into office—and generating votes for the right-wing Danish People’s Party too. His government curtailed immigration, passing laws that refugees will be deported if their home countries are deemed safe, limiting the immigration of clerics, and denying citizenship to foreign-born people over the age of sixty.

  Rasmussen triggered an uproar in 2003, when he became Denmark’s first prime minister to denounce the behavior of the Danish government during the Second World War.

  Pia Kjaersgaard: Head of Danish People’s Party, 1996–present. The social worker once delivered meals to the elderly and now dishes up steaming-hot ethnic hatred. Denmark’s most frothing anti-immigrationist, Kjaersgaard wants Denmark to stop offering political asylum, shut down the Øresund Bridge, and kick up a “holy war against Islam”—for starters. The press appreciates her controversial statements, including her claim that Muslims are “bringing a medieval mentality to Denmark.” Like she’s not?

  Housewife Pia Kjaersgaard is tidying up Denmark

  Even if the most famous Dane—Hamlet—was the fictional creation of a Brit, there are plenty of other famous Danes and famous Danish inventions, although the Danish pastry is not one of them; in Denmark they call it Vienna bread.

  Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875): Son of a shoemaker and washerwoman, Hans Christian Andersen had scant education, but at fourteen headed to Copenhagen, where he tried to make it as a singer-dancer-actor-artist-playwright and lived on the streets for years. He finally sold a musical play, which was performed by the Royal Theatre in 1829. Perpetually pooh-poohed by critics, and appreciated even less by women, Andersen found a fan in the king, who funded Andersen’s travels across Europe. Returning from an inspiring journey to Italy, Germany, and France, Andersen began writing fairy tales. By the time he died, he’d completed over 150, including The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor’s New Clothes, Thumbelina, and The Princess and the Pea; Andersen’s works are said to be the world’s most translated, after the Bible. He also applied fictional technique when writing his fantasy-filled autobiography The Fairy Tale of My Life.

  Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855): Wealthy, well-read, and a wicked wit at parties, philosopher Kierkegaard was prone to deep gloominess, which led to ideas about individuals living their own subjective truths—earning him the moniker of “Father of Existentialism.” In the 1840s, he cranked out books that wove together philosophy, psychol
ogy, biblical analysis, and literary criticism, including Fear and Trembling, Either/Or, and Concluding Unscientific Postscript, all widely respected by philosophers today.

  Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen (1885–1962): Baroness Karen Blixen, who wrote as Isak Dinesen, hardly lived a life of noble boredom. After her father committed suicide, her life became a drama. A love affair with a Swedish cousin soured, so she married his twin and traded in her privileged lifestyle to buy a coffee farm in Kenya, the basis for Out of Africa (published in 1937). The marriage between the kissing cousins fell apart (the cad gave her syphilis), and then she lost the farm. Suffering from advanced syphilis, she returned to her family’s estate in Denmark that symbolized all from which she’d wanted to escape. She was shocked, upon her return, to find herself a celebrity. Dinesen is pictured on the Danish fifty-kroner note and is the only non-royal to have rated a postage stamp. She is buried at her Danish estate, Rungstedlund, now a sanctuary for birds.5

  CUT THE CRAP: DOGME FILMS

  Sickened by Hollywood’s formulaic scripts and technological slickness, Danish filmmakers in the Dogme 95 Collective wrote a list of ten commandments, demanding that only handheld cameras be used and pledging that their films would avoid special effects, artificial lighting, soundtracks, and faked actions such as murders; they even shunned makeup for actors. The best known of the three dozen Dogme films is Festen (Celebration) by Thomas Vinterberg, in which a family reunion transforms into a hilarious forum for airing the clan’s filthy laundry. The popularity of Dogme’s films made handheld shakiness fashionable and rather defeated their revolutionary aim, as mainstream filmmakers imitated the style; even John Travolta and Steven Spielberg are fans.

  DRINKING MATTERS

  It tastes like cough syrup mixed with motor oil, but many Danes won’t travel without shot-size bottles of Underberg—the digestif so good for tums that the company guarantees its benefits. Divine: Xanté—like potable poached pears.

  News you can understand: Copenhagen Post—“the Danish News in English”: www.cphpost.dk

  14. SWEDEN

  (Sverige)

  Suddenly Unsure

  FAST FACTS

  Country: Kingdom of Sweden; Konungariket Sverige

  Capital: Stockholm

  Government: Constitutional monarchy

  Independence: June 6, 1523 (Gustav Vasa elected king)

  Population: 9,017,000 (2006 estimate)

  Head of State: King Carl XVI Gustav (1973)

  Head of Government: Prime Minister Göran Persson (1996)

  Elections: Monarchy is hereditary; prime minister elected to four-year term by parliament

  Name of Parliament: Riksdag

  Ethnicity: Swedish; Finnish; Sami; other Scandinavian; Yugoslav; Greek; Turkish

  Religion: 87% Lutheran; Roman Catholic; Orthodox; Baptist; Muslim; Jewish; Buddhist; others

  Language: Swedish; Sami; and Finnish

  Literacy: 99% (2003 estimate)

  Famous Exports: Pippi Longstocking, ABBA, dynamite

  Economic Big Boy: Volvo (autos); 2004 total sales: $30.32 billion1

  Per Capita GDP: $29,800 (2005 estimate)

  Unemployment: 6.2% (December 2005 Eurostat figure)

  EU Status: Member since 1995

  Currency: Swedish krona

  Quick Tour

  Land of snow-sprinkled spruce forests, shimmering mountains, and ice-glazed lakes, sparkling Sverige is a beauty, as are so many of her inhabitants, about half of whom live in tiny snowbound villages with populations of 1,000 or less. From the glaciers in river-threaded Sarek, Europe’s largest wildlife park, to islands of quaint cottages, Sweden is a traveler’s paradise. Draped over fourteen islands, grand dame Stockholm is artistically charged and technologically wired: the capital pulses with so many new designers, artistic sorts, boutique hotels, street markets, and information technology companies that Newsweek calls Stockholm the “new Seattle.” To the west, fetching Göteborg, the country’s major port, is home to dozens of festivals and to Volvo, the carmaker that eschewed assembly-line production, while Malmö to the southwest is the most racially diverse settlement in Scandinavia, with all the issues that come along with it.

  THE MALMÖ EXPERIMENT

  Malmö, a port city of 265,000 on the Oresund Sound and the shipbuilding center of Sweden, is Scandinavia’s most dynamic urban area. One reason: the six-year-old bridge that stretches to Denmark, the first built between the countries. The Oresund Bridge triggered a flurry of change. Against a backdrop of red-brick buildings and medieval squares, universities sprang up alongside new businesses and high-rises, including Sweden’s tallest, the new fifty-eight-floor Turning Torso—an architecturally twisting apartment tower that is now Malmö’s trendiest address. But that isn’t why Malmö sticks out. This is Sweden’s biggest melting pot—a mix of Yugolavs, Iraqis, Poles, Pakistanis, Somalis, Turks, Bosnians, Iranians, Greeks, and more; in all, over 130 nationalities, speaking 100 languages, have settled here, most since 1980. Some are quickly employed; others await word on asylum applications, which can take a year. While some industrial areas are being revamped with chic cafés and filmmakers and artists are opening studios in Malmö, poor immigrants settle out in Rosengrad, where most are Arab, Muslim, and/or African, and unemployment can run at 95 percent.2 With as few as 5 percent native Swedes in the classrooms of Malmö’s state schools, this was multiculturalism put to the test. Many locals accepted and endorsed the changes—here you can find Swedes laughing it up with Iranians and Poles—but about 40,000 fled, although the population is now booming. Others joined anti-immigrant parties, which appeared in 1984, when Scandinavia’s first mosque was erected in Malmö. Radical right-wingers don’t fare well politically, but tension sometimes flares: the mosque was set on fire in 2003—but survived.

  Sweden doesn’t have a popular anti-immigrant party, and Denmark’s self-appointed immigration expert, Danish Peoples’ Party leader Pia Kjaersgaard, continually hisses criticisms at Sweden’s doors-still-open refugee policy. She calls Swedish immigrant communities “Scandinavian Beiruts,” filled with “gang rapes” and warns that Sweden is facing an “apocalypse.” In response, Sweden’s foreign minister called Kjaersgaard an “embarrassment” to Denmark.3

  The largest Scandinavian country in area, population, and ego—and third largest area-wise in the EU—Sweden is one of the world’s most generous countries, and not just for many millions of dollars in award money she’s handed out with the Nobel Prize.

  ALFRED NOBEL (1833–1896)

  Alfred Nobel fancied writing poetry, so his alarmed parents sent him to Paris to work as a chemist. There he met the man who had invented nitroglycerin, an unstable, dangerous explosive. Nobel brought the chemical back to Stockholm, where his experiments often blew sky-high (his brother was killed during one explosion), until local authorities banned nitroglycerin within city limits. Nobel devised a way to stably contain it—in dynamite—an invention that made him wealthy, and his fortune soared after he invested in Azerbaijan’s oil fields. He founded arms manufacturing companies worldwide—including Sweden’s Bofors AB—but was also attuned to the push toward disarmament. When he died, Nobel requested that 94 percent of his estate be used to start a foundation that would award the world’s highest achievers in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and world peace. His relatives hotly contested the will, as did Sophie Hess, his young lover, who threatened to publish spicy letters he’d penned. She was paid the equivalent of $120,000 to hush up4,5—and the first prizes were handed out in 1901.

  Sweden also donates billions for victim relief in natural disasters and billions more to help out developing countries, including funds to upgrade water systems and promote sustainable agriculture development; the government even brings in workers and lawmakers from developing countries and trains them in areas from children’s rights to energy management. Like Finland, a world leader in research and development, entrepreneurial Sweden innovates, most recently in alternative fuels. The world’s biggest b
iogas plant is going up in Göteborg; using manure and wastewater, it will cut Sweden’s carbon dioxin emissions by 15,000 tons annually. Drivers can pump ethanol at hundreds of gas stations, and Sweden is so aggressively developing renewable energy that it hopes to be petroleum-free by 2020.