The Woman from Bratislava

by Leif Davidsen

  The room we entered was a grim one, even if it did to some extent resemble a small local museum in that it had pictures on the walls and exhibits in small glass cases. It was the objects on display which gave the place its sinister air. This was a museum dedicated to the SS, containing photographs of officers in black uniforms with SS runes on their collars, large black-and-white pictures of battle scenes, a Danish flag bearing the words: Frikorps Danmark – the Danish Legion. Guns, medals, yellowing letters and documents, what looked like diaries, gas masks, military insignia, accoutrements and dog tags. All the detritus left behind on the battlefields. Maps of the battles of Lake Ilmen, Stalingrad and Narva were carefully arranged in glass cases. With arrows and little labels giving the names of the regiments and which side they were on. As if that were of interest to anyone apart from those involved. In any case, even to a historian such as myself they said nothing. We were talking minor skirmishes on a pretty horrific front line, but obviously that part of the line, with all its small victories and defeats, was of interest to those who had been there. To the common soldier war is really just a matter of the next ditch, the next sheltering hedge, the next hot meal. Here one had everything which a small museum run on the limited resources available to such local ventures would be proud to present – were it not for the fact that this was an exhibition in honour of the losing side – and hence: evil. Karl Viggo Jensen said nothing, he merely remained just inside the door while I walked round in silence, looking. Fritz stood in the corner, staring at the floor and shuffling his feet on the scrubbed floor. It was still a pig shed, I thought to myself, but said nothing. Maybe I was simply a little scared, maybe I did not want to hurt Fritz’s feelings. Some of the pictures were well-known to me: the Danish Legion home on leave in ’42, for example. Fritz Clausen, the leader of the Danish Nazi Party, making a speech was another familiar image. And the picture of Christian Frederik Von Schalburg, first commander of the Danish Legion, with his small son in SS uniform – that too I had seen before. But the numerous other photographs of perfectly ordinary young Danish men with the Swastika and the Danish flag on their jackets pictured at different spots along the Eastern Front were new to me. The historians had not concerned themselves much with the losers’ story. For many years there had been no academic posts or grants available for research into this dark chapter of the occupation. But I realised as I wandered round the exhibit that this was not an impartial, if secret, museum. This was a shrine, cherished and cared for as conscientiously as if it were a part of modern-day life and not a testament to acts of treason committed almost sixty years before; as if there were people who wished to say: We did exist. We do not want to be forgotten. We are a part of you.

  One of the photographs showed a Waffen SS officer who was the spitting image of Karl Viggo Jensen himself, albeit in a much younger version. If it was the same man then I had got his age all wrong. He was standing next to another man whom I recognised as my father.

  ‘Yes, that’s me with your father, Teddy,’ Karl Viggo said. I had not heard him come up behind me. I stared at the picture with a combination of fascination and disgust. The two young men stood side by side in their black uniforms, grinning broadly beneath their garrison caps. My father had a machine gun resting on his hip – like a big-game hunter who has just brought down a wild beast. But behind the two men a whole lot of bodies were laid out in rows like the bag from a hunt.

  ‘Russian partisans. They had killed one of our men, a Dane from Himmerland, and poked his eyes out. So we raided their village, made them sorry they ever did that. War is a dirty business, believe me.’

  I said nothing. I felt sick, my nausea increasing as I gazed at the picture of my father. I had never really known him, but his blood ran in my veins. And although I did not believe that the sins of the fathers were visited on the sons, it was quite a blow to be confronted with the fact that one’s father had been involved in war crimes on the Eastern Front.

  ‘That must make you almost eighty,’ I said stupidly.

  ‘Seventy-eight,’ he said. ‘There aren’t many of us left and most of them are drooling cabbages in nursing homes now, but the Lord has blessed me with excellent health.’

  ‘Who’s Karl Henrik, then? He can’t possibly be your son?’

  ‘He’s my nephew, and the secretary of the association. But you’ll hear more about that over lunch. His grandfather is over here, come …’ He pointed to a corner of the room, made to take my arm, but thought better of it when he saw the look on my face. In the corner a number of photographs were displayed alongside two service books emblazoned with the Swastika. In one photo was a man who bore some resemblance to Karl Viggo. He was sitting in an armoured troop carrier with a pipe in his mouth and a rifle across his knees.

  ‘That’s Hans Peter. This picture was taken in Yugoslavia, not far from Zagreb, where the Nordland Division was stationed in ’43. Hans Peter never came home. He fell at Narva in ’44. He’s buried there. We found his remains a couple of years back and gave him a Christian burial. The Estonians have a greater understanding of our fight against the Reds than you find in this country. Look at the other picture.’

  It was another photo of my father. He was stripped to the waist and appeared to be soaping himself before rinsing off the suds under a makeshift shower set up in a tree. He looked thin, but muscular still. On the edge of the shot was a young girl; she had her hands over the lower part of her face, but was obviously in fits of laughter at the apparent antics of the Danish SS soldier.

  ‘That’s Andrea. Your father was very fond of Andrea. And she of him. She was the daughter of one of the local Ustashi commandants who helped us to disarm those lily-livered Italians and hunt down Tito’s devils … oh, and see here.’

  It was a small picture in a light wood frame, in colour. It had been taken on a summer’s day in a woodland clearing. A number of people, among them my older sister Irma and my older brother Fritz, were standing around a monument on which one could make out the words: ‘They gave their lives for the Glory of Denmark’. In the small group I also recognised Karl Viggo and Karl Henrik Jensen.

  ‘As I say, in the new Estonia they appreciate the contribution we made. We were fighting against the heathen communists. We were fighting Ivan. That picture was taken on June 2nd, 1998. The stone was erected on Christian Frederik von Schalburg’s birthday. We felt that was rather fitting. He was a brave soldier and a good Dane.’

  ‘And a fucking Nazi and an anti-Semite,’ I burst out, but his voice did not falter:

  ‘Yes, and so was I, but that’s all in the past. Nazism died in a bunker in Berlin in 1945. That’s what the younger generation don’t understand. That it’s a lost cause, although national socialism was originally conceived as a means of combatting communism and a social guarantee against capitalism. But that’s all over and done with. We made a mistake. We lost the war. National socialism neither can nor should be revived. That’s not the point.

  ‘Oh, and what is the point?’ I said, with anger and impotence in my voice as well as a note of indignation.

  ‘Justice. It’s a matter of justice, Teddy,’ he said.

  I could not bear to stay another moment in that ghastly room with its grim aesthetic and its worship of evil. Without a word I turned on my heel, strode past Fritz and out into the garden, where I took several deep breaths – as if the fresh air could cleanse my soul of the distorted reflection of one side of my family which that secret room represented. I lit a cigarette, puffed on it furiously while staring up at the bare branches of the copper beech. Possible title for this picture: Shocked Teddy With Cigarette Under Copper Beech. And this, my usual way of observing myself from the outside and making a joke of the situation helped me to get things back into perspective. I hadn’t even known my father. His blood ran in my veins, but that did not mean that I shared his views or ever would. I was Teddy, good old, sardonic, distanced Teddy. And besides, this was the stuff of history, it could be analysed coolly and objectively, so there was
no need to panic. Such was my reasoning, as I smoked that wonderful cigarette in the big garden and tried to bring my galloping heart under control.

  For lunch there was herring and beer and schnapps, homemade rolled lamb sausage, rib-roast and streaky pork with apple the like of which I had not tasted in years. The aroma of the tart apples and smoked pork tickled my nostrils. The marinated herring served with curry salad had just the right consistency. The pork crackling was so crisp it made my brain pop. I would have thought that I would have lost my appetite, but Teddy just loves politically incorrect food, and having lived for so long in Janne’s salad, bread and pasta hell, he tucked in with a will, washing it all down with two large drams of schnapps and a couple of cold Albani beers. The lady of the house went back and forth, so it was just we four men at the table. The atmosphere was, not surprisingly, a little strained to begin with, but everyone, including Fritz, ate well – although my brother would not look me in the eye. But the old man with the ice-blue gaze and the astonishingly smooth, parchment-like skin on which only the liver spots betrayed his age, acted as if nothing were amiss and chatted with his nephew about everyday doings in the neighbourhood. About a cow that had calved, a son who had gone off the rails, a forthcoming wedding and the new vicar, who hailed from Odense. They made no attempt to include the rest of us in their conversation, but made sure that we were helped to each new dish served up by Mrs Jensen. I had several questions which I wanted to ask Fritz – (or preferably Irma) – in private, but I had no desire to involve the two strangers in our family drama. In any case, this traditional Danish fare was so good, even if the fat content of the pork and apple would have had the Danish Heart Foundation up in arms and condemning us all to a strict diet of vegetables and fibre.

  A pot of coffee was placed on the table along with a bottle of brandy. I refused the latter, remembering that I had to drive back to Copenhagen. I passed on the cigars too. I preferred to stick to my cigarettes. Only once the table and the rest of the low-ceilinged room were wreathed in blue smoke did the old man get down to business. He explained, in the deep voice which his nephew had inherited in such measure, that he had no regrets, but that he admitted having been on the losing side. There was nothing to be done about that. There were not too many of the old legionnaires left. But the survivors met once a year in Austria, a country which took a more sympathetic view of the crusade against Bolshevism. There they could sit in the taverns and sing the old songs. There they could check whether the old uniforms still fitted. There they could tell war stories of the just battle against the Jews and the communists. The pork and apple turned sour in my stomach and I noticed both Fritz and Karl Henrik Jensen shifting restlessly in their chairs. The old man saw it too of course and said:

  ‘Who says we exterminated six million Jews? Who the hell counted all those bodies?’

  ‘There’s no need to defend it,’ Karl Henrik said. ‘You can’t defend those killings, no matter how many or few they were. One was one too many. But that’s not the issue here.’

  ‘No, you’re right, Karl Henrik. You’re right. I’m an old man. I have a right to take my opinions with me to my grave.’

  ‘So what is this really about, Fritz?’ I asked, but it was Karl Henrik who answered. He spoke with his cigar held up in front of his eyes, as if he were studying it. Fritz ran the glowing tip of his cigar around the ashtray until it fell off.

  ‘It’s about justice,’ Karl Henrik said. ‘It’s about the rehabilitation of those Danes who fought on the German side on the Eastern Front. That is the purpose of the association.’

  ‘What association?’ I asked.

  ‘The Veterans’ Association, of which I am secretary. We work for the rehabilitation of the fallen, the missing, the convicted, the survivors …’

  ‘Of whom Dad was one,’ Fritz interjected.

  ‘That’s nothing to do with me!’ I snapped and he lowered his head again, but Karl Henrik went on, under the icy, blue eye of the yellow-faced old man.

  Karl Henrik leaned across the table.

  ‘We are neither old Nazis or neo-Nazis. My uncle here may never have completely given up the faith, but he also voted Conservative for years – though I suspect that these days he would be more likely to vote for the Danish People’s Party …’

  ‘Too bloody right. It’s not the Jews who are the big threat to the Danish way of life nowadays, it’s the Muslims who are destroying everything that’s good about this country and the old parties are failing the nation again, just as they failed us.’

  ‘Be quiet and let me explain.’

  ‘Don’t bother. I have to be getting home,’ I said, but Fritz placed a hand on my arm and said in a voice both pleading and peremptory:

  ‘Just listen to him for a minute, Theodor. If only for my sake, and Irma’s.’

  I sat down again and listened, puffing fiercely on another cigarette. It was the old story of betrayal and deceit again. Karl Henrik described – with perfect truth – how twelve thousand young men joined the Danish Legion and the Waffen SS. Six thousand of these were sent to the Eastern Front. Possibly as many as three thousand were killed or went missing in action. The largest number of Danes to go to war since the Schleswig-Holstein conflict in 1864. They played their part in the first lightning victories and the last of them fell in the ruins of Berlin in May 1945. They were dispatched with the blessing of the Danish government in 1941 and condemned by the same politicians in 1945 under ex post facto laws. For years they were treated as pariahs and outcasts.

  ‘We are campaigning to have their reputations restored, to see that they receive an apology for the wrong done to them after the war.’

  ‘It was a gross injustice,’ the old man said.

  ‘You’ll never get that apology, I’m glad to say,’ I responded. ‘These fine men you’re talking about fought for the Nazi killing machine, in the SS – an organisation which was convicted as a whole at Nuremberg of crimes against humanity. You make me sick!’

  Something like fire flashed in the old man’s eyes and Fritz fiddled nervously with the tablecloth, but Karl Henrik continued unperturbed:

  ‘You’re part of this too. Your father was wrongfully convicted.’

  ‘That’s right, he was a soldier, not a criminal,’ the old man said.

  ‘I don’t want any part of it,’ I said.

  ‘The Veterans Association is now several hundred strong,’ Karl Henrik said. ‘We’ve attracted a lot of new members over the past few years. Most of them descendants of Eastern Front combatants who now realise the injustice done to their relatives. We help one another, but neo-Nazis are not welcome – although we have been approached by some.’

  ‘What a network,’ I remarked wryly, but the irony was lost on him and the old man said:

  ‘We would like to offer whatever assistance we can give, to enable you to help Irma. It would be better coming from you than from one of us …’

  ‘What’s Irma’s part in all this, Fritz?’ I asked.

  Fritz glanced at his two associates before answering:

  ‘She’s been a member of the association for years. She supports its aims …’

  ‘Irma’s a flaming Marxist, or at least she was …’

  ‘We don’t discuss politics within the association, Theodor,’ Fritz replied. ‘It’s best you speak to her yourself.’

  I merely stared at him, wondering yet again how he had ever managed to make so much money. Once more Karl Henrik came to his aid and in his words I heard an echo of my sister:

  ‘Through her Marxist analyses of the crisis capitalism of the thirties Irma has also come to the conclusion that the Eastern Front volunteers were as much victims of the war as the members of the resistance. There were simply more of them. The real bad guys were the collaborationist politicians who got Denmark into such a mess. With their boundless hypocrisy and double-dealing they managed to push the resistance movement onto the sidelines after the war, and judged the volunteers according to unlawful principles. You know y
our sister. The very fact that she is a socialist means she’s determined to see that justice is done.’

  I clapped my hands sardonically and said what a splendid little lecture that was, but I could tell that I had better not step too far out of line otherwise a situation which was already fraught could turn really nasty.

  ‘Look,’ I said, as if I were talking to a bunch of silly, badly-behaved schoolchildren. ‘This may sound trite, but it is also fairly obvious. People make choices. In this case, some chose to join the resistance movement. Others did nothing and got through it as best they could. Still others chose to pick up a gun and enlist in the SS. But they crossed that line themselves. It wasn’t society’s fault, dammit.’

  ‘It was a different story when the Soviet Union collapsed, though, wasn’t it?’ Karl Viggo Jensen said, raising his voice slightly. ‘Suddenly everyone could see the true face of communism. If the Western powers had made a concerted stand against Stalin the world would have been a different place. It was a bad, bad system. We fought the atrocious system which attacked little Finland and the Baltic countries. It was our duty.’

  ‘Stalin was an arsehole,’ I said, genuinely appalled. I was sick of the way everything these days was subject to the same moral relativism. ‘On that we can agree, but the communists did not believe that one race was superior to another. They weren’t fucking racists. Originally they were in fact idealists. Communism is a wonderful concept. Nazism is anything but. Even in totalitarian systems there’s a difference, for Christ’s sake. The Nazis were racists. They regarded themselves as supermen.’