by Bo Lidegaard
Henrik Meyer tells of the reception in Sweden, where he has clearly regained his good humor:
After going through 2½ hours’ sailing we arrived at Barsebäck. As we crossed the territorial boundary the jubilation was great! In Barsebäck’s well-fortified port we were greeted by the Swedish military and a large crowd of curious residents. We were led to a house where a Mrs. Larson regaled us with coffee and bread that local inhabitants had provided. A military person came and registered us. Wanda and I could have wrung Mrs. Selbiger’s neck.—After coffee we were driven to Kävlinge on a big truck about 20 km away. It was great to see the lights shining out of houses and on the streets.
In Kävlinge we gathered at the firehouse with a dozen other refugees and together we marched up to the school. About 100 people were gathered there, and we put our clothes in the dormitory and went over for dinner: lovely peas with sausage. The Swedes were very friendly toward us, and the Danes talked like hell.
After dinner … we went for a little walk in the town and then back to the dormitory. We were preparing to go to bed, but they couldn’t find mattresses for all of us. There was a worker next to me lying directly on the floor all night, despite the fact that I offered him half of my mattress. The Jews talked, and then they snored. Later that night a migration of older people began, and they generally stumbled over my legs. The air was stifling.6
That afternoon Niels Bohr visited the Danish minister in London. He had been flown the day before from Stockholm to Scotland and was immediately taken to London, where he stayed for some time before he went on to the United States to play a key role in the Manhattan Project. Reventlow notes in his diary: “Bohr talked about conditions in Denmark and about the outstanding assistance that was granted to the Jews by the entire nation. All in all he was full of praise for Denmark’s position. He was greatly concerned about the Jewish question, and assumed as a matter of course that those now arrested faced death.”7
By Hidden Paths
In Fanny Cohn’s summer cottage, the Hope, in Smidstrup, life looked brighter than when Adolph Meyer and his sister had prepared themselves only a day earlier to put an end to it all if the Gestapo discovered their hiding place at Marie Olsen’s. But it was still quite uncertain what the future would bring to those trapped in the summerhouses, and the whole situation and the previous night’s drama took their toll:
We did not know how long we would stay here. Mrs. Abraham- sen … was very worried about her mother and sister, the children—especially the 11-year-old son—very nervous. It was Yom Kippur evening, and old Mrs. Gelvan and the Sokols were emotional.
On the afternoon of October 8, a Miss Damm came in quickly and said that we should get ourselves prepared by 6 p.m., as we had to leave in the evening, but only the minimum of luggage—we could easily comply. We were very excited. During the day runners with white armbands had brought us food and messages. At 6:45 p.m. old Mrs. Gelvan was picked up, and approximately a ½ hour later we others, we were excited—would we eventually manage?—“Everything is going smoothly,” Miss Damm encouraged. For 3 days she had been absent from her office without a medical certificate and had not slept for 2 nights, I asked her to say hello to the clinic if she knew we had crossed over. The weather was beautiful, clear moonlight, mild. We walked the 500 meters through the forest, our way was guarded by young people with white armbands (we heard later that the Danish police had cordoned off the plantation in a 10 kilometer circumference), and relays (watchful young men and women) started by bike right from Hornbæk to check on the situation.
Shipping out from the beach was to take place just two days after the Gestapo raided the church and other hiding places in Gilleleje, a few kilometers away. For the rapidly established refugee organization it was a risky affair both to concentrate so many refugees in holiday cottages in Smidstrup and also so soon after the disaster on Wednesday night to begin embarking from the beach on a grand scale. Tensions ran high, also for the helpers, and particularly at the critical time when Dr. Meyer and his flock were reaching the embarkation point. It was, according to grocer Lassen, just about to go wrong: “The first sign of nervousness was on the beach, since one of the guards came running and told me that there were two Gestapo men behind a garage. Together with a later-known saboteur, Hansted, we went there with revolvers ready, very troubled, it was the first time, but it turned out to be 2 friends whom I later came to work with a lot.”
Dr. Meyer did not notice anything in this episode, but portrays the shipping out from the beach a little differently than Lassen remembered a few years later: “We soon reached the beach and saw a large schooner to which fishing boats rowed back and forth from a jetty. Floodlights behind the orchard searched for airplanes, the moon grinned at them, because they were looking in the air instead of searching the sea. It was quite calm on the water. We rowed easily over to the schooner and climbed aboard, the fisherman shook our hands and wished us well over, we were then placed in the hold, where we were 124 in number and had ample space. There could easily have been 3 to 4 times as many.”
In his report from 1945, Gilbert Lassen relates his version of how the shipment was organized that evening:
At 11 p.m. that evening the first boat left from Smidstrup Strand with 180 people. Earlier in the evening everything was made ready. The refugees had food; we had a doctor for some, and a few received calming pills and medicine. An accompanying person was taken to every house, and they led them by hidden paths to the shipping spot, a small grove of trees that went down to the sea and where some stone jetties went further out into the water. I got down to the signal house in good time, a high-lying two-story cottage, clearly visible from the sea. From the middle window in the top floor, at the stroke of 11, I had to flash the ship in with a very sharp floodlight I had borrowed from a factory.
The very large schooner came exactly on time with dimmed lights, as it got the signal to go as close to the coast as it could get, likewise the two small motorboats came, which were also signaled into the breakwater with a small flashlight. Embarkation could only begin when I gave the message to my helper farthest out on this breakwater, who was the young lieutenant Erik Bennicke, who later helped me many times, but approximately one year after, he was shot by the Gestapo when they came up to his office to arrest him, and he and his clerks defended themselves.
The diary of Thomas Brandes.
Among the Jews in Denmark were about a thousand young agricultural students, who came between 1933 and 1938 with a view to further immigration to Palestine in cooperation with the Zionist organization Hechalutz. However, 377 of these students were stranded in Denmark by the German occupation in April 1940. Among them was Thomas Brandes, who came to the village of Voldbro on the island of Fyn, where he met the local Gerda Petersen on the first evening. The young couple married and settled there a few years later, and Brandes converted to Christianity.
In 1942 Thomas Brandes received a letter from his father, who had escaped to Paris. Now, he was on transport to Auschwitz, and, realizing what this portended, he wrote a farewell letter to his son in Denmark, who later the same year learned that his father had indeed vanished in the camp together with several other members of the family.
As a private language teacher, Brandes had a German officer among his students. Late in September he advised Brandes to escape and as the warning was confirmed also from others, Brandes decided to leave. Gerda was pregnant and they judged it too risky for her to follow, all the more so as she as a Gentile was not at risk.
During his escape, which lasted from Friday, October 1, to Tuesday, October 12, Brandes kept a brief diary in a small notebook. Once safely arrived in Trelleborg, Sweden, he transcribed his own pages with a typewriter and pasted his notes onto the first page of a scrapbook he compiled on his time as a refugee in Sweden.
It appears that he stayed in his home until less than an hour before the action started, and that the final decision to flee to Sweden was only made a week later. The escape route went via C
openhagen, a stop at Bispebjerg Hospital, and by train to Falster, where a well-oiled local organization was responsible for the further transport by ambulance out to the Grønsund ferry dock, where the Marcus and Hannover families had left the week before.
After the war Thomas Brandes resumed his life on Fyn. The scrapbook is kindly made available by his son, the artist Peter Brandes, who was born in the town of Assens during his father’s Swedish exile.
Private collection
The successful outcome gave Lassen and his people renewed courage, and according to his account the very next evening, an additional 110 people sailed this way, distributed in two boats, from Smidstrup: “In 14 days to 3 weeks we sent people out every or every other night, as we soon came into contact with many groups, committees, and individuals.… During those weeks the Germans figured that shipping could only happen from ports, and at that time did not have as many people available, Danish and German, as they later got. The transports continued steadily in October. The number of people was, however, less and less, from 15 to 25 each time. These stragglers were often sick, the poor, the elderly, and invalids, many were found in hospitals and poor neighborhoods, each had been hiding in small rooms for weeks. For these last transports of Jews, I had many occasions to go to Copenhagen to arrange it, often gathering these poor souls at the Biophysics Institute with Professor Ege. These stragglers rarely had the means for crossing, and fishermen got about 5,000 for such a crossing shared between boat and crew, but this rarely caused anguish as several committees still had money from the so-called big days. Thus, at the end of the year, when Jewish transports had long since ceased, the Gilleleje Committee still had approximately 30,000 kroner in holdings.”8
Safely aboard the schooner Jan, out of Aarhus, Dr. Meyer and the rest of the refugees in the cargo organize themselves as best they can. The tension is far from released: “I sat on my little bag and supported myself against the ship’s wall, and then at 8 p.m. we sailed, the engine worked well. From a Mr. Katz, I got through Valdemar 6 cigars to smoke in Sweden. I did not feel calm until we were confirmed to be in Swedish territorial waters. We sailed 3½ hours, as the schooner made a detour into the Kattegat. At 11:30 p.m. we were in Höganäs port. We sang the Danish national anthem followed by the Swedish. We were saved.”
CHAPTER 14
* * *
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9
REALITIES
The Town Doctor
The town doctor in Höganäs, H. G. Widding, took pride in the fact that the small town itself was able to mobilize the forces needed to handle the increasing flow of Danish refugees. In his own words he had already been worn out like a slave for a week with the reception and medical examination of the arrivals, but he liked the job and went to work with heart and soul. At the same time he kept a diary of things large and small, also following the events early Saturday morning on October 9: “I will never forget the night between October 8 and 9. I had fallen asleep around half past midnight when the police called and said that they had 124 refugees at the port. I quickly got dressed, found [a few aides] and soon the work flowed wonderfully. By 4:30 in the morning we had examined all so they could get to their accommodations. A family—Grundkin—(the father is the newspaper editor) composed of wife, husband, and three children, had to stay with us because one child had something of a cold and I had neither the opportunity for isolation nor the heart to separate them.”
Adolph Meyer talks about his arrival and the friendly reception, which is in huge contrast to everything the fugitives had just been through. But Meyer also notes that the sincere solidarity is the same on both sides of the Sound: “The reception in the harbor was as gracious and sincere as our compatriots’ actions. Customs officers, sailors and the tall Swedish soldiers welcomed us. The weather was beautiful, moonlit and warm. After waiting awhile we walked the very long way to People’s Park, where we had milk and coffee and cookies, then we had to fill out questionnaires and were registered and examined by a doctor. I introduced myself as a doctor, and Dr. Hakon Widding offered ‘a 2 bedder.’ Mary and I were picked up by car and driven there, it was now 3:30 a.m. October 9, so it was nice to go to bed, we shared the room and slept soon.”
The town doctor not only has a family of five in his home but also accommodates Meyer and his sister-in-law, who both the next day tell their host about their entire journey. Widding in turn tells them that several of the children have difficulty understanding why they have been forced to flee. They’re Danish, as they explain to the doctor, and had never thought that they were also Jews. Widding also recounts an episode: After he checks a newly arrived refugee the man thanks the doctor and observes: “Yes, you may send the bill to Hitler!” Widding pleasingly notes that Danish humor is still in evidence even under these tragic circumstances.1
It’s also in evidence at the reception camp in Kävlinge, some twenty kilometers from Barsebäck, where the young refugees Henrik and Wanda Meyer have not had a pleasant first night but are in good spirits. That same day Henrik describes life in the troubled camp: “We struck out early. It was not possible to wash, and we were gradually getting filthy. In the women’s dormitory there had been even more turmoil, and some infants had howled the whole time. It was nice to get some fresh air. Some young people had been up all night, others had arrived during the night. The toilets are indescribable. Wanda and I help in the kitchen.… I’ll collect and empty trash and later help with the morning coffee.… Registration begins, and we line up in good time. After completing a form we are called one by one.… We’re queried there whether we want to obtain [ration] cards for tobacco, and it is confirmed. After some waiting, we come to the doctor. He looks like an uncomfortable mountain troll, and the examination is quite a parody. He listens to my heart, we’re screened, and the throat is looked at (the doctor uses a spatula rinsed only in lukewarm water!). Then we go to the bank and convert 100 Danish kroner on my passport. The exchange is 80.”2
Henrik and Wanda Meyer are already looking forward to going to Göteborg, where his parents are lodging with acquaintances. The hunt for a new life has begun, and for the young ones for whom the change feels less dramatic, the worries are less intrusive. Letters are written home to caregivers and family, delivered through a Swedish soldier who promises to pass them on to a Danish fisherman who can mail them in Denmark.
In Västerås, Poul Hannover’s last entries are characterized by daily life that is already beginning to appear. “Yesterday—Saturday—I was at the bank. It was Mette’s birthday—we had some small presents for her.… But perhaps the best gift was that we were told that grandfather had come. Wernekinck called, if we would come out there last night—after which grandfather called, so we talked with him—and were told to wire home. At 6 p.m. we went to dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Wernekinck singing—on the table there were two packages for Mette.”
In Ljungsbro, Kis and Gunnar Marcus were now also settling down with their friends, the Frænkels: “We went for a walk along the Göta Canal with Eva and the kids. It was very beautiful with all the autumn colors on the trees. Drank hot chocolate when we got home on the occasion of Mette’s birthday.
“Eva and Henry gave us their bedroom right away when we came, and they had borrowed a few beds for Palle and Dorte. They slept in one of their living rooms. We also borrowed nightclothes, underwear, and the like from them.”
Now it’s Adolph Meyer’s turn to deal with the many practical issues after arrival. The overriding consideration is to inform the immediate family that they are safe and to get information about who else has come over. About the accommodation at his colleague’s in Höganäs, Meyer says:
It was a very luxurious villa with nice furnishings and a large garden. We had breakfast there, but ate all subsequent meals in the Hotel Switzerland together with the refugees; Mary moved during the day to a family who had given Valdemar, Ulla, and Ragna shelter. By telephoning Göteborg … I got permission to go there Sunday, got Mary and me photographed (which was done with the help
of the Kaminkowitz ladies), and I obtained the police emergency travel document for Mary and me. In the morning I was immediately told that Hjalmar and Esther were going the same day to Göteborg, I took a car to the 11:30 train, but they had gone with the morning train. I met Mogens and was told about everyone. I had talked to Carl Mannheimer [a wealthy Swedish relative who offered to house the family] who promised to telegraph that I could go to Göteborg and asked Dr. Widding to lend me money. I borrowed 200 kroner which was returned on Monday the 11th of October.… I was happy to learn that all my family was saved, later it turned out that nephews and nieces were also in Sweden. The weather was still summery. Widding and all other Swedes helpful and hospitable.
Meyer had reason to heave a sigh of relief. After almost two weeks of flight, he could now start to build a new life in Sweden. On Saturday the ninth alone, when the inflow peaked, it is believed that more than fourteen hundred Danish Jews came over. In the following days the flow of refugees began to slow. Most had reached safety.
Upon his arrival Adolph Meyer, like all other Danish refugees, had to fill out an application to get an alien passport. The form can still be found in the Swedish police files. The pediatrician inserts his personal information on the preprinted form with neat handwriting. About the reason for his visit to Sweden, he cites “Jewish persecution in Denmark,” and to justify why he did not have a valid Danish passport upon arrival, “Had to flee.” But Dr. Meyer left no doubt that he considered his stay in Sweden as temporary. Asked how long he wants permission to stay, he doesn’t enter a date but writes, from his own perspective: “Until the day when it is possible to return to Denmark.”3