大象传媒

We were occupied for five years by the Germans from the 5th of April 1941. In the beginning, I was in Copenhagen training as a nurse, they didn鈥檛 cause us much trouble because they were having a good time, feeding them butter and cream. It wasn鈥檛 until the Danish on the ground started irritating them a lot, which I was part of, and they felt it was time to bring the Gestapo in, and we didn鈥檛 like them very much. They occupied a huge big building in the centre of Copenhagen, and they built special cells on top where they put Professors and Doctors, important men, hoping the Air force wouldn鈥檛 bomb that. So there was a tiny accident where the Air force did come into bomb them on the request of Danes because they were going to arrest a lot of Jews. The Danes thought if they could get all their papers out then they wouldn鈥檛 be able to get at them. But there was an accident, the first Air force bomber that came over, he got caught in some wires, dropped his bombs and fell down there. The second lot of bombers they thought that was their target and bombed it and it was a Catholic school, all the children were killed. The Air force has erected a monument on that spot. There wasn鈥檛 any Jews left for the Germans, the Danes had moved them all the way over to Sweden and they reckon that was the only country that saved all their Jews. Apart from that I carried on with nursing and it wasn鈥檛 until the Gestapo come up that we had a lot of trouble with them. We had a curfew, we weren鈥檛 aloud out after eight o鈥檆lock, and that鈥檚 when all the young people wanted to get out, so we sneaked out and hid behind corners and crept under benches. Then at one time, because I was a nurse, I was sent to Germany for a short time in Hamburg and I couldn鈥檛 send any message home to my parents, like where I was but by some trick I got back to Denmark, they left me alone then, they took my passport off me so I couldn鈥檛 escape.

When I was in Hamburg I was working where most of the soldiers had been wounded at the front, and we were in a great big manor house, and we were right on the top and the Air raids went off all the time in Hamburg because the English was bombing them. For along time we couldn鈥檛 be bothered to run up and down, it was a spiral staircase with a lot of glass. On this particular time I did go down and they were shooting and I had a Macintosh on and they shot straight through my jacket, shooting me from up above. Then the air raid went off again and I went one way and my friend went the other way and they bombed the part of the house that she ran into, so that was a Belgian girl who was working in the hospital. So that was the end of her, to put it mildly. I survived, got back home and married one of the English soldiers when they came over to liberate us.

The Germans stopped all the police and sent them to somewhere in Hamburg, concentration camp or something and I had some friends in the police, and they鈥檇 got some guns they wanted to hide them, I had to get them to a certain point and I put them in a folded umbrella and I was on a tram in Copenhagen and the Germans stopped the tram, and I just stood there holding this umbrella. I would have just been shot if had been caught, very gently up against the wall but that wasn鈥檛 the worst thing that could happen to you. If I had been shot that would not have been the worst thing that could have happened.

I can remember there was a German guard in the centre of Copenhagen, they鈥檇 built concrete all around him and we used to go up and flirt with these soldiers, and this fella had no trousers on, and every body walked past and laughed. Of course he didn鈥檛 like it. Then we used to knit little hats with the Air forces red, white and blue, and they were forbidden we weren鈥檛 allowed to wear them. There鈥檚 a book called the savage canary, there鈥檚 a big eagle on front of the book, representing Germany and there鈥檚 a little canary hacking and blood is running, that little canary is Denmark, that鈥檚 all they could do, just small irritations. It was only five million people.

This story was submitted to the People's War by Carlie Swain of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Eva Cox and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Cox fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.