大象传媒

I was born on a farm in Mid Jutland in 1930, my father was a farmer. On the 9th of April 1940 I was almost ten years old.

I remember that my brother and I were at a carpenters in the nearest village, to pick up a wheel barrow that the carpenter had made for us. The carpenter told us, that Denmark had been occupied by the German's. We didn't believe him, but when we came home to our farm, there came lot of low flying aeroplanes over our farm. And we understood that it was correct.

The next day posters in the village were put up, with proclamation that the Germans was coming in to our country, to secure our country. And that our King call on the Danish people, to maintain peace.

I had been aware of dark times to come, according to our newspapers. But we all had hoped, that the war was not to affect our country . We saw long convoys of German tanks and other vehicles on the roads and in the villages there were lot of German soldiers.

They confiscated schools and other buildings, for accommodation. We didn't see them very often in the countryside. After a short time we got ration cards, in order to buy certain goods. There were many things we couldn't buy at all. After some time we couldn't buy coffee, and then we started to use barley in stead. My mother use to bum the barley in the oven, I remember the ugly smell. And it tasted ugly, and it certainly didn't taste like coffee.

Those who had a bicycle couldn't get any tyres, and many of us were using a thick rope instead of tyres. There was no gasoline for ordinary people, only doctors and veterinary doctors could get some gasoline. So later we saw trucks with gas-generators, who used wood to make gas. The baker had changed his small truck to be a horse drawn car instead. The truck looks like a normal truck, but the front window was taken away.

I also remember that in the night, English bombers was flying over our farm. The next morning my brother and I could would find thousands of aluminium strips in our fields. I know now, that they鈥檙e name was "Windows".

One day one of our employed came with a sort of lock, it was made of aluminium and on it stood Attention Evacuation de Secours. I have later found out, that it was a sort of lock to a American Harvard aeroplane, probably made in Quebec Canada. When the lock was released, the Plexiglas (window) over the pilot was ejected. So the crew could escape this way.

My brother and I often found small flyers. Once we found a whole package with the string still around it. I still have some of those, they were in Danish and there was many funny caricatures inside.

There was one, where we see a bunch of Germans officers standing around a table with a big map and in the door is Hitler coming, we see a pitiful man. The officers says: Don't trouble us with this war, now we are already planning the next one. There were many of those caricatures, and we were laughing a lot of them.

I also remember seeing a barrage of balloons over our field. There were so many stories about those balloons, some people were told that they could tear up trees, and roof of houses. So we were very much affraid of those balloons.

In about 1943 some German officers came to our farm, and they demanded a piece of my father鈥檚 land. He couldn't say no, because they had the "right". It was a piece of some land, which lay far away from our farm. It was used to dig peat to heat up our house. The Germans wanted to build a disinfecting plant there.

They built two barracks there, and a kind of autoclave to disinfect uniforms and boots. My brother and I often went there, to see what they were doing. There were 5 German soldiers, to take care of the plant. They were very nice people, and since we haven't much amusement in those days, so it was fun for us to tray to talk with them.

The four of them often said "Deutschland caput" in English "Germany is finish" They know that it was going bad for the Germans. And once four of them asked us, if they could come and hear the German broadcast from 大象传媒. And we asked them, what about the one who I know was a nazi? And they said he is "ein kamerat" he is "a friend" and that he would not report it. So they came in our home, and they were listening to the 大象传媒 from London. The same way that we were doing each evening in Danish.

I am sure that if the German authority has known that, they would have been shot immediately. I remember there was a Gardner from Frankfurt am Main, It was before in the DDR. Those soldier who looked after the plant, were full of wound's after grenades or other shot's. They often showed us pictures of their family and child's. In a way we felt sorry for them, even if were our enemy.

On another occasion British Mosquito bombers were attacking the University at Aarhus, because it was the high command for chasing of Danish freedom fighters. I remember that the Mosquito's came very low over our barn. And they were flying very low over the roof, I think that I could have touch them with a long stick. On their way home to England, they shot after a empty railway wagon. We found lot of cartridge outside the wagon, it was from a big caliber gun. My brother and I exchanged those cartridges for other things. The boys in the village were eager to buy those big cartridge.

27th of August 1944, an English Lancaster was shot down near Skarrild. It was about 14 km from our place. There were 7 crewmembers aboard the Lancaster, and they were all killed.

I remember the evening 4th of May, we were listening to 大象传媒 on our radio.
Then the speaker came on with the message, that the German's had surrendered in North Germany, Holland, Belgium and Denmark. We were all ecstatic, and we were all dancing of joy.

I remember my brother and I took our bicycle, and with a Danish flag on the bicycle we draw to the nearest village, to celebrate with the people there.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Anastasia Travers from WM CSV Action Desk on behalf of Verner Norgaard Anderson and has been added to the site with his permission. Verner Norgaard Anderson fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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