We Made it Through the Rain

And as it turns out, we pedal much faster in a downpour!

We left Rorvig earlier than planned this morning, hoping to beat the rain…but you can’t outsmart the weather. About halfway through our 20 mile ride to the ferry to Aarhus, it started raining…first lightly, then steadily and when we got off the ferry and rode a few more miles to our hotel, thunderstorms.

Let’s just say a hot shower never felt so good.

How it started

How it ended

The ride from Rorvig to the ferry in Sjaellands Odde is mostly farmland and small towns. We saw a lot of cows, sheep, wheat, horses, corn, raspberries…and windows in old buildings with stars of David in them.

That was unexpected! We are more than 100 miles from Copenhagen, where we’ve learned most Jewish life was centered. The buildings weren’t clustered, but they weren’t that far apart. And the windows were very visible from the road – we spotted them without really trying. Here are the ones we saw – look for the round windows near the peak of the roofs:

More than a coincidence, right? We’ll ask the rabbi about this on Friday, but for now we have two theories…which could both be wrong:

We learned at the Jewish Museum in Copenhagen that Denmark’s earliest Jews met upstairs in private homes for services…maybe these were small home shuls?
We also learned that young Zionists came to Denmark to learn agricultural techniques before going to Israel to settle and develop the land there. Israel, like this area of Denmark, is near the sea…could these be from that time?

Any other ideas? We’ll keep you posted!

The ferry to Aarhus was huge, and had a playground, full restaurant and coffee shop, lots of dogs and much more on board. We had a snack and appreciated being indoors. There was no view at all because it was raining so hard, but I’m sure it would have been great.

Bike parking inside the ferry

Really good food – and even better coffee

Play area

Rainy view

Compounding Complexities

In Aarhus this afternoon we met with a friend of a museum colleague who thinks critically about the larger context of history as it’s popularly told. She doesn’t form opinions lightly, but relies on data and thorough research. She was reluctant to suggest answers because she hasn’t done that research on the events of 1943 but the conversation introduced a lot of fascinating new questions!

Among other things, we discussed cultural differences surrounding responsibility for others and how this may relate to questions of bystanders, upstanders, resistance, neutrality and cooperation. The conversation brought us to one big conclusion:

Every decision matters. What happened in 1943 was the perfect storm of a million different decisions, likely made for reasons we’ll never fully understand – but every choice matters. This has always been the lesson Lauren intends to bring home to her students.