Make it Personal

There is so much to tell about today that I don’t know where to begin…it’s all important. So I’ll do it chronologically.

Mindelunden

We started the day at Mindelunden, a memorial park for resistance fighters. It’s a combination of a smaller Arlington National Cemetery and what I imagine a visit to a killing field would feel like. The site is a former Danish army barracks, taken over by the Gestapo in August 1943 and used as an interrogation and execution site for captured Resistance members. Yesterday at the Resistance Museum we saw three tree stumps. Audio played of prisoners’ last letters home before they were tied to these trees and shot at close range.

Those trees came from Mindelunden.

After the war, the site became a national memorial park and recovered bodies had a heroes’ re-burial.

Anna Wagn, the education director, gave us a private tour. Her approach mirrors what Lauren is trying to do for her students and what I have long believed – that the most effective way to draw someone into a story is to make it personal. Big numbers and statistics are impressive and important, but stories make us care.

So Anna is trying to personalize this place through the stories of people buried there. She shared a few but the most compelling was personal to her:

Anna’s husband’s great uncle is buried here. And she lives in his house.

After this introduction we walked to his gravesite and learned more…including a very human detail about a bottle of rum.

Anna also addresses some of the debate about who is and isn’t buried here…the empty grave beside Karl’s used to belong to an informant.

There are a few Gerda III connections here. Henny’s boyfriend Minx is buried not far from Karl, and Jorgan Staffeldt who ran a bookstore with his brother Mogens is buried in another section. Henny and Minx worked closely with the Staffeldt brothers and their store was an important meeting place.

Anna had a different story about Jorgen Staffeldt

Anna is absolutely passionate about her work and has some thoughts about why Denmark doesn’t celebrate more loudly their role as upstanders in a world of bystanders: conflicted feelings, cultural modesty, and a sense that other countries experienced deeper wounds and greater losses.

There was so much to take away from this visit, but one recurring realization is that for Danes the 3 week rescue of the Jews is a detail, the big story is of the Resistance overall, and the national memory is somewhat mired in conflicting details that aren’t all heroic.

Bikes!

From Mindelunden we headed by train to pick up our bikes.

I LOVE THIS BIKE!!! Seriously, I had no idea just how heavy and loud and awkward my own bike is until I rode this rental. Lauren thinks it’s similar to her own bike, so this mechanical marvel isn’t unusual. If my husband is reading this…it’s time for new bikes. I’ve been riding an antique.

Denmark really is made for biking, with safe and well-marked bike lanes everywhere. We set out to find Henny’s neighborhood, with some excellent tips from Howard Veisz, the author of Henny’s Boat. (A more recent edition of Henny and Her Boat)

There’s some nonsense in here…but also our bikes!

We found Henny’s house, the canal where she kept the Gerda III, and the approximate location of her warehouse hiding place.

Our connection to Henny is the Gerda III, docked in Connecticut and the inspiration for this trip. Finding locations and retracing steps described in Howard’s book is personalizing the story for us, in an odd way.

Ok, some photos to close and we hit the open road tomorrow – more to come!

Entrance to Mindelunden