BECOMING MORE OF YOURSELF IN WAR TIME


Both Bent and I lived through the 2nd world  war and have great appreciation for those who were willing to sacrifice their lives for not only the Jews, but for us.

Many Danes were upset that the Danish King Christian the 10^th let the Germans walk in to Denmark without resistance.

Bent was 6 years old and wanted to be in the resistance movement like his older brother and was pretty upset that “he was too young” for that.  Even though Ludvig never spoke about what he was doing, Bent and his parents knew.

I was 3 years old when the invasion of Denmark started. 9 April 1940. My father was also involved with the resistance movement, but I don’t know the details of it.

We had a neighbor where the son Bjarne Hansen was in the resistance movement and the father was a traitor, involved with the Nazis.  The Father gave his sons name to the Nazis and Bjarne was killed. He was my sister Birgit’s friend and she was pretty upset.

We remember having to darken the windows every night. My Dad would get all our clothes and everything ready every night, in case we had to leave in a second.

In order to be warm we children had to go out on the road to find coal for the stove.

I remember playing with “left-over” hand granites which was sometimes laying in our yard.

All foods were rationed. We could not get real chocolate and we never saw a banana before the war was over. At Christmas my mother would make “Godter”.  A Danish “non-chocolate” chocolate, nonbaked cookie.  It was a recipe handed down form my grandmother, who used the same recipe in the 1914-1918 war.


I am so grateful for all the people who became "more of themselves" to sacrifice for others.