My grandmother Elly was born in 1904 and died in 1968 in Aarhus, Denmark. 

Listening

• My grandmother Elly was a quiet, sensitive, caring, and helpful person. 

• My mother told me that she never heard her mother raise her voice. 

• When my mother worked as a trainee in the office of the tailor company Jensen Skorup, her mother Elly would sometimes spontaneously stop by and have a chat over a cup of coffee. 

• My grandmother had a very positive influence on my father. An example: My father had a problem with a stuttering. However, when he was with my mother and with my mother's mother, he never stuttered. The reason: He felt loved and felt he could be who he is. 

Beauty

• My mother told me that her mother, who was not very tall, was always wonderfully dressed and liked to use perfume.

• My grandmother Elly loved everything that was beautiful.

Helping

• My grandmother Elly helped people save money for presents they wanted to give to their loved ones at Christmas.

• The neighbors of my grandmother loved, when she played the piano in the apartment, where she lived. 

• My grandmother sang in a church choir. 

• My grandmother regularly cleaned the house of a district court attorney.  

• In the 1920s, my grandmother Elly started working in the house of the Rasmussen family. Two brothers of the Rasmussen family owned a goldsmith store at Søndergade 1 in Aarhus. My grandmother later helped out in the goldsmith shop. 

• My grandmother also helped a friend sew clothes for people. 

• For another friend, a half sister of Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II, my grandmother helped people find their preferred fragrances at her perfume shop.

Courage

In September 1944, my grandfather Robert and about 2,000 other Danish policemen were captured by German soldiers and brought to concentration camps in Germany. Following this, my grandmother Elly took several courageous decisions. 3 examples:

• Example # 1: Even though her neighbors and good friends strongly advised her not to do it, my grandmother Elly went with the Red Cross buses to concentration camps in Germany to see if she could find her husband Robert. She did not find him. 

• Example # 2: When German soldiers knocked on the door and commanded my grandmother to give them the weapons of my grandfather, she denied that she had any. In fact, she lied: With the help of the caretaker of the apartment building, my grandmother had hidden my grandfather's police weapons below the coals in the boiler room in the basement.

• Example # 3: During World War 2, German soldiers commanded that black window blinds were put up in apartment windows, where my grandmother lived with her children, and that these blinds were rolled down. Again and again, my grandmother rolled up the blinds - even though German solders pointed at the windows with their machine guns.

Faith of my grandmother

My mother told me that my grandmother Elly regularly visited the catholic church in Ryesgade in Aarhus. My mother also said to me that she did not go to the church with her mother. When my grand parents married each other, my mother's mother became a protestant.

My grandmother, Ingrid Bothilde, grew up in Holstebro in the western part of Denmark. She had a sister, Lydia Marie as well as 3 brothers, Jens Henry, Carl Christian and Laurits Bernhard, who was a baker. My grandmother grew up with her parents, sister and brothers in Holstebro in the western part of Denmark. She met Rasmus Peter, with whom she had 4 children, Gerda, Astrid, Ricard and my father Leif.

Cleanliness  and order

• When my grandmother Bothilde moved from Holstebro to Aarhus, she helped out do cleaning work at a hospital. She also helped out in the hospital kitchen. 

• My grandmother wanted her children to dress well. A tailor helped her make good clothes for her children.

• In the 2-roomed apartment, where she lived with her husband and four children, she also took great pride in keeping everything clean. My mother told me that even when the apartment only had 2 rooms for the family of six, they often used only 1 room, the bedroom where everyone slept. Why? It was important for my grandmother that the other room was clean all the time.

Togetherness 

My grandmother liked to invite the family over for lunch. Every Sunday, she cooked roast pork, a classic Danish meal that people enjoy for dinner as well as for lunch, for example with red cabbage, slices of orange and rye bread.

My grandfather Robert was born in 1898 in Aarhus, Denmark, and died in 1966. 

Work of my grandfather Robert

My grandfather Robert was educated as a cooper. As the need for wooden barrels and casks were replaced by other technologies such as stainless steel tanks, plastic containers, glass bottles, jars, cardboard, tanks and tankers, my grandfather educated himself as policeman. And it was as a policeman in Aarhus in Denmark that he served people most of his life. For example, he guided traffic on the street. 

My mother told me that one morning in September 1944, when my grandfather Robert came to work at the police station in Aarhus, he was held hostage by German officers. Together with about 2,000 other police officers in Denmark my grandfather was deported to concentration camps in Germany. He spent 8 months at 3 different concentration camps: In the concentration camp Neuengamme near Hamburg, in the concentration camp Buchenwald as well as in the concentration camp Stahlag IV B in the Eastern part of Germany. I learned that in May 1945, when concentration camps were liberated by British and US soldiers, my grandfather and his colleagues were brought back to Denmark via Sweden by white buses operated by Red Cross.

To understand what had happened to my grandfather, I asked my mother if she could tell me more stories about this time. To my surprise, my mother could tell me only very little. Why? She explained to me that her father had told her very little about what happened. And because she chose to suppress experiences, thoughts and emotions, which she had during this time, she also did not communicate or do much research herself about that dark time. My mother did tell me that when her father came back to Denmark, he spent several months in hospitals due to, for example, infections. Following the horrible experiences in the concentration camps, he sometimes also had problems with stress.

In 2017, I somehow felt more ready than ever to do more research about what happened to my grandfather during the time in World War 2 when he and his police colleagues were placed in concentration camps in Germany. With my girlfriend I went to Hamburg to learn about this time at the Neuengamme concentration camp memorial. During the days, we spent there, my girlfriend and I read, observed and listened. For example, we had the opportunity to communicate with Dr. Reimer Möller, a competent and friendly research leader. Mr. Möller gave us tips about books to read to understand better what happened to my grandfather and his colleagues during this time. Following this research work, I wrote this blog posting.

I learned from my mother that when my grandfather came back from  the time he spent with other Danish police officers at concentration camps in Germany, he started working at the office for lost property in Aarhus.  

Relationship life of my grandfather Robert

One day, as my grandfather was working, he saw my grandmother. They started dating and later became a couple. At the end of the 1930s they had two children, my mother Hanne and her brother John. 

My mother told me that when her father came back from having spent 8 months with other police officers at concentration camps in Germany, he was in bad shape. For example, he had infections and also suffered from stress. My mother said to me that her father was away from their family home several days a week. In addition, my mother explained that my grandfather often met with friends, co-workers and other police officers to talk about experiences they had at the concentration camps in Germany. 

My grandfather got involved with another woman and partly lived with her in her apartment. When he came back home to his wife and his two children after days away from them, he slept a lot, my mother explained. 

In the 1960s my grandfather wanted to divorce my grandfather. At that time it was difficult for a woman to divorce a civil servant. To get proof my grandmother sent my mother over the apartment of my grandfather's gilfriend. My mother told me that as her father opened the door, my mother and her father hugged each other and both cried. My grandfather told my mother that he had difficulty living with his wife because they did have any sex life with each other. My grandmother said to my mother that he needed her to testify before a judge to make it possible for her to divorce my grandfather. My mother said that she was not able to do that. From that time on, the relationship between my grandmother and my mother was not the same. My grandmother and grandfather were divorced anyway. When my grandfather died, my mother cried a lot, she said. And when my mother met her mother and was crying about the death of her father, my grandmother did not want to hug my mother. That hurt my mother a lot, she said. And the relationship between my mother and her mother changed this day.

Openness and humor

Robert liked being around people. He was charming, had fun with people and liked joking around. For example, he would sometimes open the door at home and say so everyone could hear it: "Have you standing here for a long time? Come on in." In fact, there was nobody there.

Togetherness

• My grandfather was a great athlete. For example, he participated in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris in wrestling and came in as number 8 in the competition. Robert was also a member of the board of Aarhus Athletes club. 

• My grandfather liked to cook. In most homes at this time, women cooked for families. My grandfather broke this norm, as he regularly cooked for his family. 

• In concentration camps in Germany during World War 2 my grandfather cooked food - from the skin of potatoes - for his police colleagues. 

Safety and control

• Over a large part of his professional life, my grandfather Robert worked as a policeman. 

• My mother explained that her father did not accept my father - neither when she dated my father in the 1950s nor during the time my mother was married to my father. My grandfather did not tell my mother, why he did not accept my father. My mother's explanation why her father did not accept my father was that my father was the son of a man, who worked at the harbor of Aarhus. Another key reason was  - as I have understood from my mother and my father - that my grandfather wanted his daughter to marry a policeman. He was convinced that would be better for her. During these disagreements, my mother's mother Elly strongly intervened and said that my mother should choose the person she loved. Several times my grandfather demonstrated the dislike he had for my father. 3 examples:
  Example # 1: Once, when my grandfather noticed my mother and father kissing at the door of the apartment, where my mother lived with her brother and her parents, my grandfather literally threw my father down the stairs.
  Example # 2: When my mother and father invited my grandfather to come over to visit them, my grandfather responded that he did not want to come.
  Example # 3: Each year on my mother's birthday, my grandfather left a present for my mother outside my parents' apartment. However, he chose not to ring the door bell. 

The childhood of my grandfather Rasmus Peter

My grandfather Rasmus Peter was born in the countryside outside Aarhus as the third child of 11 children. My mother told me that Rasmus Peter left school very early and began helping out at various farms. 

Work of my grandfather Rasmus Peter

When Rasmus Peter moved to Aarhus, he started working at the port of Aarhus. Later, he worked in various controlling jobs. For example,  Rasmus Peter worked as a city guard in Aarhus towards the end of World War 2. He also worked as a security guard at the harbor restaurant Valencia in Aarhus. In addition, my grandfather worked as a caretaker at residential buildings in Aarhus.

Values of my grandfather Rasmus Peter

# 1: Order
My mother told me that my father's father, who worked as a caretaker and controller, was an honest person, who was focused on justice. He had a strong focus on establishing and keeping order. My mother also told me that Rasmus Peter was strict when doing his jobs. 

# 2: Directness
My mother told me that my father's father communicated directly.

# 3: Kindness
My mother told me that my father's father was a very kind and loving man with family members. Shortly before he died, 9 months before I was born, my mother told my grandfather Rasmus Peter that she was pregnant. He was very happy to hear that, my mother said to me.

My father told me very little about his father. What my father told me about his father was, primarily, that they did not talk very much with each other.