by Bo Lidegaard
Architect Poul Henningsen was among those who felt the earth burn beneath him after the August uprising. The Nazis believed PH to be a subversive Communist, but the government had tried to protect the naughty-rhyme man by claiming that he was only a “salon Communist” and thus should not be detained. Danish Nazis, however, became more and more enraged at PH, who in cooperation with the like-minded CEO of Copenhagen’s popular Tivoli Gardens, Kjeld Abell, was in the process of transforming the old garden into a hotbed of jazz and other liberal activity that—rightly—was seen as directed against Nazi bigotry. After several attempts Henningsen ended up fleeing across the Sound on September 30. A rowboat was transported from Bagsværd Lake to Høje Skodsborg, where he and his wife, Inge, joined fellow architect Arne Jacobsen and his girlfriend. Jacobsen was of Jewish descent, as was the fifth passenger, a young sports rower, Herbert Marcus, who manned the oars seated across from the two small, stout architects.
The five set out from Høje Skodsborg at nightfall. The trip was longer than expected, and only after five hours in rough seas, with the women bailing water continuously from the open boat, did they reach Landskrona. “We have fallen among human beings,” PH wrote shortly afterward, moved by meeting friendly Swedes who bade the refugees a warm welcome.
In Stockholm, Henningsen quickly became part of the lively and highly combustible intellectual environment in which refugees from Norway and Denmark, together with Swedish peers, discussed the lessons of war for the impatiently awaited peace. The young German refugee Willy Brandt was part of this group, with distinct social democratic leanings and a pronounced rejection of Communism. When Willy Brandt later called himself a Nordic Social Democrat, he was referring not least to these years in Stockholm.
Private Collection
Poul Hannover explains: “Yes—I could probably finish the story of the trip here. But anyway, let me briefly report further. The next day I was with the police several times—partly formalities dealing with the money—I was allowed to change 400 kroner—I was at the bank twice—I got my one pair of shoes fixed.… Inger took some of our clothes to the tailor to get them cleaned and pressed. The tailor was a story in himself. He had a sister in Denmark … and he was touching—it cannot be described. The different people who had been there could confirm that he was adamant in his refusal to take money. On the contrary, he filled the different parties’ pockets with cigarettes and chocolate. When I came down and had to pick up our clothes—and it was not so little—there was no question of accepting my money. I burst into tears and asked to pay him for his work—but no, do not talk about it—and if I needed money—yes, he did not have very much—but a little might also be of some help. It turned out that he knew the fund manager Landin at ASEA, He went off and came back with a little box of Sedubrol—I should take a few pills with some broth to calm down—and barely had I come back to the hotel before a package arrived from him—and when I open it, there is both a box of sweets, some real chocolate with the sweetest little letter to me that here were some ‘sweets to the children.’ I shall never forget him.”16
CHAPTER 10
* * *
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5
GOING NORTH
Under Arrest
Many of the fleeing Jews had not gone far. They had sought refuge with neighbors, friends, and acquaintances, or they had gone to a vacation home in the country—their own or borrowed—to gain time and await further developments.
Some were also still admitted to hospitals under aliases. This included Ella Fischer, who was admitted to the municipal hospital with neuritis. In her diary she describes how things began to take off that Tuesday: “For a start, the head nurse and Miss Ring came and retrieved my bill, because Dr. Krabbe wanted the Jewish patients’ names changed, and at the same time we were given notice that our clothes were to be brought up to the rooms, so that we [would be] ready for a quick discharge. When I asked if we were no longer safe in the hospital, the response was that they could not guarantee anything. They would certainly take their precautions.”
In her diary there is a short report about a Danish helper, Mrs. Sorensen, who apparently quite inadvertently, from one moment to the next, had been thrown into a Jewish family’s efforts to cope with the situation, stick together, and find ways to get to Sweden: “During visiting hours Mrs. Sorensen came—she lives in the same building as Johanne and Fritz—and told me that they had reached Sweden. She showed me a letter that Johanne had written from Swedish territorial waters, in which she had asked Mrs. Sorensen to visit me. She offered to help me leave, but then, of course, when I would not go alone, I gave her the address of Miss Raastøff, and she then went to talk to her.”
After Mrs. Sorensen had gone to attend to this errand, the hospital chaplain arrived. He had spoken with Ella the previous Sunday without much success. This time it went better: “The hospital chaplain came soon after, and to my great astonishment, offered to help me leave. He did not want anything more, he said, than to help get us off, and I could just send for him if I wanted help. How this offer fits together with his preaching a few days before, I do not understand, but he may have changed his mind.”
In a roundabout way Ella gets a message that “Mrs. Sorensen seems to think she can help me get away the next day. She will come to me during visiting hours.” The problem now is money: Ella’s employers are apparently not exactly generous or understanding: “Munksgaard had only wanted to give me 700 kroner—the stingy ass—although I had not yet received my salary for the month of September. He said that if it were necessary, I could ask for 300 kroner more. He also asked if there wasn’t something I could sell. I have no idea how he imagined this business might be conducted when I was in the hospital and all my relatives and friends were scattered to the winds.”
Her landlady was more helpful. She had packed what was needed from her tenant’s room and showed up at the hospital with it: “Miss Abro came in with a suitcase with my clothes, so now I had everything ready to go. I gave Miss Abro the message to rent my room furnished because it was the easiest way out. I also said that if she vacated the apartment, could she make sure that my stuff was stored. I gave her Per Federspiel’s address so the storage could be arranged with Leo’s things. That night I barely slept although I had been given a strong sleeping pill.”1
In Ruds Vedby, Adolph Meyer is aware that he and Mary, his sister-in-law, must move on. The hope that they could ride out the storm in this rural area and at some point return to town and resume their normal lives was shattered. They had to get away, and away meant to Sweden. Rumors from numerous directions indicated that escape routes were being established and that possibilities for shipping out were best from the north coast of Sjælland, where in part there had been the fewest German police, where there was a long and scarcely populated coastline, and finally, the coveted Swedish coast not so far away. It is also apparent from the doctor’s entries that his hosts and colleagues are now starting to move to get the seventy-two-year-old and his sister-in-law out of the place before it is suddenly too late: “The next morning, Tuesday the fifth of October, to my surprise, Dr. Hart arrived at 8 or 9 in the morning (I had yet to see a doctor). He said he was with a friend. Erik Nyegaard had come to Ruds Vedby the night before at 11 p.m. When Hart opened the door to him, Nyegaard discovered that Hart was from his school and that they knew each other.… They sat together a long time. He stayed there that night, but did not close his eyes, and looked pale.”
Although it is not clear from Adolph Meyer’s diary, the connection must be that Erik Nyegaard, after the departure of the Hannover and Marcus families from Grønsund on Saturday night, went back to Copenhagen and was informed there that the twin sisters’ father had taken refuge with his colleague in Ruds Vedby. Without knowing that he was an old schoolmate of Dr. Hart, Nyegaard must have gone to see if Hart’s lodgers, the aging refugees, needed help. With his arrival in Ruds Vedby late Monday night, Nyegaard found that the host and he actually knew each other from their old days, an
d the two of them, Dr. Hart and Nyegaard, deliberated overnight over the old people’s flight.
Dr. Meyer explains further: “Then Erik Nyegaard came in, and I did not immediately recognize him. He was fitted with a Danish police badge (this was stolen by a saboteur from a police officer. Nyegaard got it from him and went to police headquarters with it, and he was allowed to borrow it to help the refugees, and they informed him that according to the number, it had belonged to a cop named Nissen, whose name he should take. So police headquarters also helped).”
This must be the fake police badge Kis Marcus mentions in her diary, and which Svend Nielsen, a resistance man according to her information, had used to get through a checkpoint on his way to Falster. He had apparently passed it on to Erik Nyegaard, who had the audacity on the Monday to go to police headquarters in Copenhagen to clear up whom the stolen police badge belonged to. It is not clear whether Nyegaard had a confidential relationship with the police, or whether he might just have wanted to return the badge to the right person. However, he ended up keeping the badge, now helpfully provided with the false identity of a named Danish policeman.
To the refugees and their helpers, a major obstacle was the lack of cars. As gasoline was difficult if not impossible to obtain, private cars generally didn’t run, and official cars were under tight control, with ambulances the most obvious exception. Thus many refugees were transported in ambulances as they transited through the hospitals en route to the coast. In other cases public transportation was the only option. Even if this was unrestricted, it was highly visible, all the more so as all railroads invariably led through Copenhagen. This was regarded as a significant risk, especially in the case of Adolph Meyer as he was a fairly public person who could easily be recognized. The idea, therefore, was that Meyer and his sister-in-law should be transported as Erik Nyegaard’s detainees. Dr. Meyer explains:
Then Mrs. Hart came with Mary. We had to pack in a hurry and only take the small bag. The red suitcase I had at Dianalund, Hart took along. There could be no nametags on any of our belongings, the name was ripped from my jacket, and I had to leave my passport, cane, doctor’s ring, the pearls, extra gold cufflinks, all luggage. Fortunately I had a coat, galoshes, but in my attaché case only toiletries (minus tooth powder case), a set of silk pajamas, a wool sweater, my angora vest, extra glasses, mittens, and 5 handkerchiefs, no extra collar or shirt or undershirt, not Mathilde’s picture in the silver frame and only the cigars I could fit in my case and a little tobacco in a tobacco pouch + a pipe. Some of this was probably excessive caution; if we were taken, the fake name would hardly have helped. I drank some milk and ate a little porridge and bread in a hurry; we went out to the waiting [doctors’] car after Hart had explained the situation to the doctors and I had said my farewells to the Harts.
As arrestees we were led off, first to Sorø, where we waited in a separate room at the railway hotel after Nyegaard had presented his badge. The host asked if the prisoners were from the area. “No,” said Nyegaard. Later he asked if it was Jews. “Do you think that the Danish police do the Germans’ drudgery?” Nyegaard answered.
After barely a half hour we were led to the railway station, where we were brought into the stationmaster’s office, which led to a back door that Nyegaard locked and gave the key to stationmaster. The previous evening in Korsør he had ordered a compartment for our transport. He called express to police headquarters in Copenhagen, as it was said that trains were being checked in Copenhagen, but fortunately it turned out not to be the case.
Rush Hour
Adolph Meyer continues the story of his journey:
The train came and we were brought to the rear compartment, where passengers were taken off first. They had forgotten to give the train conductor notification of the transport in Korsør, and he was a little fussy, but a pack of cigarettes from Nyegaard, which were actually some of my packs from Dianalund, did wonders. “Be a little nice,” Nyegaard said to him, and soon after signs were put up on the windows with the word “Occupied.” The curtains were drawn. We did not dare travel to the central train station, where there were Gestapo. We went as far as Valby, where we arrived about 2 o’clock. We were on the platform, our backs to the train, until people had gone and the train had departed, went out from the station to the left, got a taxicab, and drove around town to Hellerup; where we got another car that drove us to a villa in nearby Charlottenlund.
In the car I hid myself as best as possible. In the villa that I think belonged to Nyegaard’s sister, only the maid was home. We stayed there for 5 minutes, then we went for a few minutes to a villa belonging to the merchant Johan Hansen, inhabited by his daughter, a local teacher, Miss Hansen. Her mother and a couple of older ladies were present, they soon left, and Mrs. Hansen gave us lunch, during which Miss Hansen, who was very charming, came home. The father came later, he had not, apparently, understood the seriousness of the situation. Nyegaard, to whom we had said good-bye, had immediately informed me in the morning that Inger and Poul, Kis and Gunnar and their children were safe in Sweden. He had also informed me of the wording of the telegram we should send after arrival in Sweden. The idea was that we were leaving in the evening with Axel and Ingrid Salomonsen and their children [another Jewish family], and when we all came over the telegram should read: “Asea, Bredgade 45, Copenhagen, 6 engines were unfortunately delayed”; if we came over alone, it should read: “2 engines unfortunately delayed.”
Adapted from: Kreth and Mogensen, Flugten til Sverige (1995).
So far so good. But Dr. Meyer actually was nearly back at his own home, and there were still many stops to come. The escape had not yet been efficiently organized, and each of the helpers was drawing on his personal contacts. Even if everyone was supportive and hospitable, it brought Meyer and Mary no closer to the coveted transport over to safety: “At 4:30 p.m. or a little later there was a call, and I heard a voice say: ‘Is Uncle Adolph here?’ It was Director Henry Nielsen, and he took us immediately with his car, said that Ada, Jørgen, and family were safe—in Copenhagen. We drove to a villa Højbo in Gentofte, I went straight in and heard some voices. When I walked into the room, they said they were sorry but that the car with some others who were about to leave had driven off about a half an hour ago, it could not wait for us; luckily Henry Nielsen had not yet paid for the car. We should have gone via Hornbæk to Gilleleje on the north coast, but we only managed to reach the North Rail train in nearby Holte and go over Hillerød on the Gribskov train. It was pouring rain, and we had to stand a large part of the way. Henry Nielsen came with us. It rained heavily in Hillerød, we were in a carriage that was completely full of refugees, several carriages were used, and we were at least half an hour late, there were about 200 refugees on the train.”
One has to imagine here an old provincial train with two wooden carriages and normally only a handful or two of passengers. That afternoon it was all different, and among the many refugees who passed through the station in Hillerød was Herbert Levysohn, who after many vicissitudes during the previous days had followed a route not unlike Adolph Meyer’s, and who now ended up on the same train as the pediatrician and his sister-in-law. We thus have two independent contemporary accounts of the events that ensued.
Levysohn recounts in his journal how he was greeted by two assistants at Holte station, one probably a trusted employee at his father’s business, the other an uncle:
I sat in Holte station in the waiting room and immersed myself in a newspaper. Soon after clerk Stridsland and Mr. Wenzzel came. There is a forest behind the station where we walked around for the next hour, where I got an explanation about it all. That evening one of the vessels from the coastal police was to leave from Gilleleje. We would be 5 people in it, all in all it was very safe. I only needed to approach a man in Gilleleje with a Band-Aid on his right cheek. If I saw him on the train I had to pretend to know nothing. Then I got some of Mom’s jewelry that Mrs. Stridsland had made a small bag for, for me to hang around my neck. I got some mon
ey, including 1,500 kroner that the trip would cost. Eventually Stridsland gave me the royal emblem in gold as a parting gift, for which I was very touched. Finally I signed a document that gave them the right to sell my papers as they thought best. Stridsland then went into town and bought some food for me, but I never ate it, it was lost in the confusion. Both went with me down to the train to Hillerød, and I departed. In Hillerød I was to switch over to the local train to Gilleleje. It was rainy and very dark, I still had not seen the fellow with the Band-Aid.2
The scene at the train station in Hillerød reflects the situation in many parts of North Sjælland that week: Fleeing families and large groups of refugees approaching the coast with only faint ideas of how to proceed from there. That particular afternoon the pressure was so heavy that the railways had to add extra cars and dispatch densely packed carriages. It would have been an easy matter for any authority, Danish or German, to intervene and arrest the refugees. But German Wehrmacht soldiers who randomly observed the fugitives had no desire to see anything, military police were not deployed to transportation hubs, and the few eager Gestapo officials and their Danish collaborators could not be everywhere. In most cases the only authorities operating were Danish police and railway personnel, who at worst closed their eyes but more commonly helped the fugitives on their way. The problem, however, was the reception on the sparsely populated north coast, where the locals were completely unprepared for the influx coming on the afternoon trains.