DENMARK'S WW II RESISTANCE

                                Denmark's Brave People
 

      It was a short ride from Kronborg Castle to the Gilleleje church which played a major role during Denmark’s well known WW II resistance movement. Gilleleje is a small quaint fishing village. The movement was large and I’m sure there is much I do not know, but I can impart the little of what I have learned traveling.

         In 1939 Germany informed Denmark’s government that they were about to be invaded, and they could agree peacefully, or if they chose not to, Germany would then bomb and flatten Copenhagen. After weighing all options Denmark chose to survive and save the historic city.

         The Dane passive-aggressive behavior was quite remarkable. They identified and blew up any factory that was sending supplies of any kind to Germany. England dropped weapons and artillery by plane to the resistance.

          The royal family remained in Copenhagen for the duration of the occupation. The king rode horseback through the city every day taking no official guards with him. Masses of people on bikes followed close behind him sending the message to the Germans that they had better not mess with the king. At one point the Germans tried to occupy the palace, but the resistance from the people was so great that they backed off. However, four royal guards did die.

     Bond fires were built in the streets to prevent German movements. The army and palace went underground.

        Mr. Wallenberg, a Swedish citizen, went to Denmark and gave false Swedish passports to Jews so they could escape.

        In 1943 when the Germans planned to round up all Jews in the city, that fact was leaked to the Danish government by a German high command insider who had been schooled in Denmark.  Overnight 7000 Jews were hidden and a few at a time smuggled to neutral Sweden. It is said that Danes checked the phone books to locate Jews and then went knocking on their doors. Only a few refused to leave. Jews started leaving town with only a small suitcase as if they were going to the countryside to visit relatives. Many made their way to the small fishing village of Gilleleje.

      Here villagers walked up to Jews on the street and guided them to their home and sheltered them until they could safely be transported to Sweden in small fishing boats. At this point, Sweden is only a few miles across the water. In a small village everyone knew everyone else and everything that was going on. It is remarkable that no one let it slip what the community was doing. Germans had obtained a list of all Jews from the synagogues, so they knew who to look for.

      When all the homes were full, the small 1400s church sheltered 75 Jews at a time in the dark attic above the ceiling of the church. Being quiet in totally dark surroundings the frightened Jews could hear Germans talking outside. Villagers smuggled food and pails of water, for sanitary purposes, into the church. About 1300 Jews were sheltered in the church before the Germans got wise. Of the 7500 Danish Jews only 450 were caught and of those only 55 died. Those captured were sent to Czechoslovakia where they could receive Red Cross packages.

        Sweden opened their borders to any Danish Jew who could make it to freedom. When the war ended a Swede paid for a bus to fetch and bring home Jews who had been sent to Czechoslovakia.

     In 1945 General Montgomery and his troops searched for anyone who had in any way helped the Germans. The men met swift justice, but the women publicly had their head shaved and paint thrown on them to show their shame.

      It was pretty awesome to stand in the little church that played such an important part in the resistance movement. The church has a brick aisle down the center that ends at the altar and the aisle is called the ship. Ship models hang from the ceiling over it, which is very typical of Danish churches. The sea has always been an integral part of this sea-faring nation.  This church’s walls are white and brass chandeliers hang from the ceiling. An hourglass is in prominent display near the pulpit to time the sermon. I wondered if people would get up and leave when the hourglass was empty.

       Remember the story about the English woman living in Denmark who helped many a downed allied pilot.  It took the Germans a long time to discover her but when they did they sent her to a concentration camp. However, because she was English they were reluctant to execute her. After much harassing she finally wrote her ‘confession’ on toilet paper in defiance of the Germans. She died of natural causes a few months before liberation.

      There are many stories about brave people who defied the Germans during the war, and of the 6000 Danes sent to concentration camps during WW II most were resistance fighters, not Jews; 600 of them died in the camps.

     The Danes, living in a neutral country, have long memories and will never forget the German occupation from 1940 until Allied Forces liberated them in 1945. To this day one cannot buy a bottle of German wine in Denmark. Denmark became a charter member of the United Nations and one of the original signers of the North Atlantic Treaty.

HIKE INTERPRETATIONS

HIKE INTERPERTATIONS

         In England we learned quickly that our guide’s interpretation of a few undulations   meant there would probably be nearly a full day of ups and downs and that little or slight could mean 500’ straight up.

        He said the first morning, “Most Americans determine English walks are really hikes.”  It did not take us long to absolutely agree!  In spite of the fact that hiking boots and walking sticks are difficult to pack in limited luggage I was most grateful for both.

        Toodleing is a slow walk and cracking on means to walk smartly or move quickly.  In reality toodle (rhymes with noodle) meant a pace of about 3 ½ miles an hour and to crack on meant to walk as fast as your legs would go. Everything was so well planned that we seldom had to crack on.

         Loo the favorite expression for toilet, has two explanations of how this abbreviated word came about. One is that years ago the contents of  chamber pots were thrown out the window into the street below. When doing so, one yelled, “Watch out for the loo” or some equivalent which eventually got contracted down to just plain loo.  The other explanation is that the word waterloo, meaning watering hole, just shortened to loo. In any case they were pretty scarce in the areas where we were hiking, and each morning at the briefing we would be advised of the loo availability. Most days it was the green room which I think is a delightful expression for back to nature, or  behind a bush.
       The English do a really smart thing by having a totally equipped free-standing restroom in their carparks (parking lot). We found these consistently clean and well stocked. You always know where one is available. What kid doesn’t have to go as soon as you park the car? 
       In ancient times before roads or maps existed, people used Celtic crosses to mark the way. We saw many such crosses when hiking in the moors. It was the custom to leave a few extra coins, if one had them, on the top of the cross, and if one needed them he could take what he needed---ah the days of honesty! One ancient cross we stopped at was about six feet high and sat on a 30-inch base. It was impossible to put coins on the top, although our guide made a valiant effort.
      The definition of a moor is a flat high area that is treeless, but usually is scrubby. Walking the moors we noted the heather was beginning to bloom so our guided explained, “There are three kinds of heather: bell, ling, and cross leaf. It is the bell heather that is beginning to bloom. You can see fairly large patches of it. Heather is the life blood of the red grouse, which is indigenous to the area. The grouse eats the young shoots. When the heather is 6-7-inches tall it provides nesting areas, and at its full height of 12-15-inches it provides protection. Grouse hunting season is in August. There are controlled burns of the heather every 12 years from September to April so there are patches of different stages of growth all the time. When burning, only the top growth is burned, then the fires are put out before the roots are burned.”
       When the wind blows, and I think that is most of the time on the moors, the heather sways in undulating waves in a sea of color. We were lucky to see three grouse leisurely cross our path!

                             

SARCHI, COSTA RICA

                                           All about Coffee

           Sarchi, Costa Rica’s main artisan town and home of the colorful caritas, the famous wooden ox driven coffee carts is not too far from San Jose.   The city is spread over hills that are covered with coffee plantations. The Trojas River divides the small city north and south. Sarchi means land of ashes.

       My first visit to this small mountain city was on a brief stop in the country when our ship’s crew mutinied years ago---that’s a long story. I was fascinated with the coffee wagons that are now painted with folk cart and are meant as decoration. But once upon a time coffee was transported from one side of the island to the other in ox carts for ship transport.     

     Alfaro and Sons is the only true ox-cart manufacturer in town. Carpentry methods have not changed since its founding in 1923. The two-story building is surrounded by trees and flowers. The machinery on the first floor is powered by a water wheel in the back of the shop. The carts are painted in the back. The show room is large and carries furniture and other wooden items, to say nothing as a plethora of tourist items.

        I could not resist buying a cart, a wee bit too large for a end table, but it is great on my patio. The shop ships and I wasn’t home a week when it arrived.

And speaking of coffee….. Coffee only grows above 800-feet. Costa Rican economy was often referred to as a desert economy or a coffee/banana economy. I have visited several coffee facilities. At the first one in Costa Rica I learned: Tomas Acosta first introduced coffee in 1805. In 1821 coffee plants and land were given to people in the Central Valley, but the land belonged to the government. In 1831, the government deeded the land to anyone who had been farming it for the previous ten years. At that time the only country trading for coffee was Nicaragua. 

       In 1832 Jorge Steeple transported 25 ton of coffee to Panama via mule, where it then went to Chile and then on to England. In 1844-45 William Lalacheus linked the Central Valley to the Caribbean. From Caldera, around Cape Horn, to England and back to Costa Rica took 18 months. In 1900-14 coffee prices dropped and did not recover until 1939.

       Costa Rica is one of the few places where Arabica coffee is grown. Robusta coffee is too bitter to drink by itself so is combined with Arabica. However, Arabica coffee is sold and drunk by itself.

     Britt is one well known brand of Costa Rican coffee. We arrived at Café Britt just before a heavy downpour. In the theater we watched an entertaining live presentation about coffee.  It takes three years for the plant to produce beans and the plants produce only one crop a year. The same field is picked 4-5 times each season, at three week intervals. Only the red bean is picked, and all coffee beans are picked by hand. They are ripe during the dry season, December to March. Pickers strap a large basket around their waist that when full weighs 25 pounds. The beans are processed the day of picking. They sit in water 24 hours. Eventually the beans are sun dried for seven days, then can be held up to a year before roasting.

       The show was animated, funny and a delight while telling the story and history of coffee.

THE FRENCH COUNTRYSIDE

Cezanne's studio 

From Aix-en-Provence, France it was a long, narrow, winding road up into the hills, and I was happy not to be driving. Cezanne bought the property in 1901 for 2000 francs and built a narrow house between two olive trees he would not cut down. The house really consists of one very high-ceiling room. A large 30-pane-window faces north with three regular windows on the south wall. Many of the articles he used as models for his paintings are in the room. We were told they even keep the apples fresh all the time. A tall ladder was in one corner, so he could climb up on it and see how light reflected from above on his subject.  

Cezanne only sold 12 paintings during his lifetime. He and his two sisters were illegitimate.  However, he was rich as his father was a successful banker and businessman. His father had a big home in town and apparently took good care of his son financially. His mom died in 1899 and it was very traumatic for Cezanne. He was eccentric and really didn’t care about selling his work. 

  After touring the home and listening to a docent in the home we wandered around the grounds. It was quiet and peaceful in the hills. It was an interesting visit mid afternoon.

                       

ST. PAUL DE VENCE

St. Paul de Vence is a quaint village in France.  The walled town still has its 16th century ramparts almost intact making the village pedestrian friendly as vehicles cannot   maneuver around them and cannot enter the village.  Situated atop the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean coast, it was discovered by artists, who were probably attracted to the village’s quality of life, in the 1920s.

It was a slight climb up and down from the parking area to the city entrance. The walled city is shaped like a ship’s hull. The views from the ramparts of the ocean and the terrain below were fantastic. We chose to walk the ramparts to the end of the point where there is a small cemetery where Chagall is buried. After finding his gravestone---all the graves are above ground since they sit on solid rock---we walked down the narrow alleys window shopping and looking for an inviting restaurant for lunch.

We finally selected a quaint restaurant that was busy but not hectic. The lasagna was very tasty. A couple of other people followed us and chose crepes. We eventually walked back to our starting point and found our way back to the parking lot. It was a delightful stop. As we toured the French countryside we always stopped in unique little villages for lunch.