On Course

Today was our last full day in Denmark. And it began with another chance encounter that floored us.

The Dragor Museum has an exhibit about Ellen Nielsen, a woman who helped Jews escape through Dragor. She was arrested for her activities and sent to one of the most brutal concentration camps. Yesterday’s blog include video of Dines Bogo talking about her in that exhibit. Here’s some info Dines sent to Lauren prior to our trip:

Ellen-Wilhelmine-Nielsen-help-to-jewish-refugees.pdf Download

And here’s a shorter version

Today we had breakfast with Ellen’s grandson. By accident.

Our hotel in Dragor (another that was occupied by the Germans, by the way) has a breakfast each morning. So there we were…and we heard a woman speaking English at the buffet. We struck up a conversation and she mentioned that her husband is from Dragor. We told her what we’re doing and she said he has a story. Here it is:

As we rode out of Dragor, pinching ourselves, we again had the feeling that every house holds a story, and too many will never be known.

Generations

Today’s scheduled appointment was with Rabbi Jair Melchior of the Great Synagogue in Copenhagen. I’ve been especially looking forward to meeting him – a colleague of my synagogue’s former rabbi referred us to him, and described him as “a mensch’s mensch” and it’s true.

He’s also the great-grandson of Rabbi Marcus Melchior, who received the tip from Georg Duckwitz in 1943 and directed his congregation to go into hiding and spread the word. His great-grandfather’s story has been widely documented, and he recommends this short animation, narrated by his grandfather, as a good summary, especially for students:

I’ve been collecting questions for Rabbi Melchior, and these formed the basis for a discussion about events in Denmark but also the global context, how Holocaust education around the world varies, how it’s changed over time, the nuances of what we call anti-semitism, and the most relevant lessons for today. Rabbi Melchior expressed strongly that the most important lesson is about standing up for “others,” whoever and wherever they may be – which perfectly aligns with what Lauren has been saying all along.

Also, it turns out those windows aren’t anything meaningful. just a coincidence of geometry. But this conversation was very meaningful, and we are extremely grateful to Rabbi Melchior for his time, his thoughtful perspective, and for all he does to make our world a better place:

On Foot

The moment we’ve been dreading came…we returned our bikes today. I’ll write a follow up post maybe from the plane or sometime soon about biking in Denmark…but the short version is that bikes are a fantastic way to travel! As soon as we gave them back we felt their absence.

Setting off on our last ride, from Dragor

Shabbat Shalom

When we set the dates and realized we’d leave on a Saturday, I thought a perfect end to this journey would be to attend Shabbat services at the Great Synagogue, which I did tonight. I couldn’t help thinking, as I sat in the well-worn wooden seats, about how it must have felt to come to a service in this beautiful place, and instead to be told you must flee.

This service welcomes the Sabbath, a day of rest and time of reflection. I can’t think of a more meaningful experience for tonight. Tomorrow we fly home, which is unlikely to involve much rest, but there will be plenty of reflection tomorrow and in the days to come.