Bornholm

My final DIS-sponsored travel  was another “adventure trip” — to the Danish island of Bornholm, located in the Baltic Sea between Poland and Sweden.  This weekend trip, from Friday, April 29, to Sunday, May 1, was the perfect excuse to forget about the final papers, exams and presentations of the next two weeks.

We left central Copenhagen by bus at 11pm on Friday night, driving to the ferry terminal where we would take a 6 hour overnight ferry to Bornholm.  After the uncomfortable and virtually sleepless nights of travel to and from the Czech Republic, I decided it was worth the money to pay for a cabin bed on the ferry.

Arriving in Bornholm around 6am, we drove past one of the island’s famous round churches to our hostel in the town of Gudhjem, where my room had a beautiful seaside view.  After breakfast we picked up our bikes.  I decided to go along with six of my friends on the so-called “Killer Tour”– which was a very appropriate name.

We began at a leisurely pace, enjoying views of the glistening sea and wooded paths, and happy to be breathing in the fresh air (although it often smelled of pigs as we rode past farms).  We arrived at Dueodde beach — 20.5 miles from Gudhjem — in time for lunch.  We were surprised at how quickly those miles had gone and felt that they had been remarkably easy.  Two of us decided to eat lunch on the beach, rather than in a very out-of-place Texas-style steakhouse.  The beaches at Dueodde are said to have the finest sand in the world, which is exported around the world to make hour glasses.

Getting back on our bikes was much more difficult.  And, honestly, after this the trip is now one painful blur to me.  We began riding uphill, usually directly into the wind, across a completely unprotected landscape of (rather barren) fields.  The map we had been given was very imprecise and we got lost twice– once going at least 10 kilometers out of our way.  I don’t know how we got back and I have never been more physically exhausted.  We estimate that we went 55 miles.  And, I don’t remember having ridden a bike at all within the past 4 or 5 years, and certainly had never gone more than 3 or 4 miles in one day.  Luckily Gudhjem had the most adorable ice cream shop, where we all ordered the “double special” — a cone with two large scoops of ice cream, topped with vanilla soft serve, whipped cream and a chocolate-covered marshmallow on top.

The next day we were much, much less ambitious.  We rode about 8 miles total — just to the Helligdomsklipperne rock formations (a.k.a. “The Sacred Cliffs”).  The cliffs and seaside there reminded me very much of Door County, Wisconsin, where my family used to vacation nearly every year.  After that, we headed back to Gudhjem to explore the town a little more before leaving that evening.

We didn’t arrive back to Copenhagen until nearly midnight Monday morning, at which point I had to run through the rain to catch my train (which, miraculously, was the only line that was functioning properly at Nørreport Station).  Beginning the next week (when I had two final papers due) on little sleep was difficult– but, despite all the exhaustion that resulted from the “Bornholm Bike Trip” it was completely worth it– mostly because of the friends that I made during the miles of biking, who, sadly, I wouldn’t have more than a couple of weeks to see before we’d be leaving Denmark.

For a few pictures of this Danish island, check out the gallery “Photos: Bornholm.”

Czech Republic

During the second week of the DIS travel break I signed up to go on a DIS “adventure trip” to the Czech Republic.  Over 40 of us left on Sunday, April 17 for a (very uncomfortable) 13 hour overnight bus drive to Český ráj — known as the Bohemian paradise.  We stayed in Hruba Skala, a castle turned hotel, surrounded by a national park of beautiful forests, mountains and valleys.

Our first day, Monday April 18, thankfully consisted of fairly relaxed activities since we were still recovering from the virtually sleepless night before.  We were split into two groups and mine began the morning with ice breakers, which consisted of everything from learning the names of our local Czech guides to tightrope-walking and trust falls.  After lunch we had an archery tournament.  When being taught how to use the bow and arrow I was surprised how dangerous archery could actually be! 

On Tuesday morning I chose the group participating in rappelling and high rope bridging.  After a quick zip line across the gorge near our hotel (which was still much less terrifying than my zip lining in Costa Rica), I had to cross a rope bridge to return back to the original side.  While the guides had of course attached us to a wire above the bridge, if our footing slipped we would be left dangling above the gorge until a guide could hoist us up.  It was definitely a difficult and frightening balancing act, but I made it across without falling.  That morning I also went rappelling for the first time — down a cliff of 50 meters.  I actually really enjoyed rappelling, maybe because I felt much more in control of my own pace and safety.

In the afternoon my group then went on a “guided trekking” excursion in the woods.  It was a fun, fast-paced hike that led us to beautiful expansive views of the valleys and our castle/hotel, perched on a cliff.  That night after dinner our Czech guides organized a candlelight orienteering session.  In addition to the fact that we were left scrambling to uncover hidden messages in almost complete darkness, the treasure hunt was made even more hilarious by the “frightening” costumes of our guides.

My group began Wednesday with rock climbing and rappelling in an area that was both more difficult and even more fun than the day before.  That afternoon we were originally planning on spelunking (i.e. caving).  As scared of heights as I’ve long thought myself to be, I went zip-lining, rock climbing and rappelling with little concern.  But, I was honestly terrified of the prospect of crawling through caves so tight that it would be impossible for me to stand — and with no way of escape.  So, I think I may in fact be more claustrophobic than acrophobic. 

While many were disappointed, I was actually incredibly relieved to discover that we would not be going spelunking because endangered birds had built their nests in the caves.  Instead, we spent the afternoon canoeing on the Jizera River.  Although a couple of the canoes flipped over (and my friend Abby and I nearly did) while going over a little waterfall, the journey down the river was very relaxing.  The highlight was passing by a farm where little black lambs ran alongside the river.

On Thursday morning we drove about 1.5 hours to Prague, where we would have the day to ourselves before returning to Copenhagen.  My friends and I first walked across the iconic Charles Bridge over to the Prague Castle complex.  While the views of the city from across the Vltava River were beautiful, the city — and particularly the area around the castle — was unbelievably crowded, which made it difficult to fully enjoy.  After a nice lunch we met up for a walking tour that DIS had arranged for us, which took us past most of the city’s main sights — including the Old Town and the Jewish Town. 

After splitting off from the group, and before eating dinner, three of my friends and I took a short walk away from the Charles Bridge to the much quieter area around the John Lennon Peace Wall — which quickly became my favorite spot in Prague.  The wall began to be covered by Lennon-inspired graffiti shortly after his death in 1980, and came to be seen as a protest space during the final years of communism in the Czech Republic.  We were happy to sign our names to the Peace Wall before returning to the Old Town square, where we wandered through the vast Easter market and enjoyed a performance of traditional Czech song and dance by a group of children.

I had chosen this trip to the Czech Republic because DIS promoted it as a way to go “off the beaten track” in Europe.  I was so happy to spend the second half of my travel break in such a relaxed setting, experiencing the beautiful nature of the Czech Republic.

Check out my pictures under “Photos: Czech Republic”

Switzerland

On Wednesday my mom and I took an early morning train from Paris to Switzerland.  The trains are high tech and always on time, but often don’t run at high speed because of track limitations, which was great since it allowed us to better enjoy the beautiful views of the countryside. 

Although eventually bound for Zurich, we decided to spend a day in Bern, the capital of Switzerland.  After transfering trains in Geneva, we arrived in Bern early afternoon.  Bern is a gorgeous city founded in 1191 and situated on the River Aare.  We stayed in a lovely little boutique hotel, known for its original art works and situated in the oldest part of the city, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The city is a juxtaposition of the old, with its cobbled streets, against the bustling activity of the capital, with its state-of-the-art cable bus system.  The screaming red buses are unbelievably long (sometimes spanning an entire city block) and run non-stop — which is efficient, but makes it difficult to take pictures that are unencumbered by a web of cables.

We were able to see most of the sites in the Old Town within a few hours by foot.  Bern is best known for its ornate, colorful fountains, which are found every block or so.  The city has been home to famous people including Albert Einstein, who refined his theory of relativity in the two years he lived there.  Bern also boasts beautiful churches, impressive art museums, Switzerland’s premiere university and, of course, the Federal Assembly. 

On Thursday morning we got an early start so that we could sit in at the Federal Assembly, where we witnessed a floor debate on a trade bill.  Switzerland has four official languages — German, French, Italian and Romansch.  While virtually all of Bern’s residents speak German, it was so interesting to witness Assembly members speaking in the country’s various languages.  Before leaving Bern, we took a walk past our hotel and happened onto the famous Bern bears.  We spent some time just watching an adorable family of brown bears eating cabbage– and sometimes even seemingly posing for pictures.

We left Bern by train late morning, arriving in Zurich around 1 in the afternoon.  Zurich is a conspicuously wealthy city, divided by the River Limmat between the financial hub area and the historic city center.  We stayed in a charming, spa-like hotel in the historic part of the city, perfectly situated for walking to all the best sites– including many beautiful churches.  In the Grossmünster my mom actually agreed to climb a narrow spiral staircase to the highest tower so that we could take in spectacular views of the city from above.   The presbytery of the Fraumünster is lit by beautiful stained-glass windows designed by Chagall.  Although simpler than the Grossmünster and Fraumünster, St. Peter’s Church was my favorite, with its light, airy interior.

Although Zurich sits within sight of the Alps, we decided to take the train on Friday to Luzern, which is even closer to the stunning mountains.  Luzern (Lucerne in French) is known for its breathtaking location on the western shores of Lake Lucerne.  Again, the old town was easy to take in, with beautiful churches and a wonderful lake-side walkway where we could saunter ever-closer to the Alps.  We were also happy to find an English-style pub on the water where we could enjoy a great burger and fries and watch the swans and ducks paddling about through the clear blue water.

Our trip ended Saturday morning, when we departed from the Zurich airport — my mom flying to Chicago, while I headed back to Copenhagen.  Switzerland was one of my very favorite countries.  I loved how every city had an old, historic city center with quaint houses, surrounded by the absolutely pristine natural beauty of the Alps.

For pictures from our days in Switzerland, see the gallery “Photos: Switzerland.”

France

DIS gave us a two week travel break in April, during which I went to France and Switzerland with my mom, and then to the Czech Republic on a DIS-planned “adventure trip.”  Since then, the semester has been winding down and so I’ve been very busy writing papers and preparing for final presentations/exams.  But, as of yesterday I am officially done with all of my work for the semester, so now I’m going to try to recap my last month of travels.  I will try to remember everything!

On the morning of Saturday, April 9, I met my mom at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.  It had been three months since I left home — the longest time I’d gone without seeing her.  After eating lunch and settling into our hotel room (which had a beautiful view towards the old chapel of St. Anne’s hospital), we headed to the nearest Metro station.  My first impression of Paris was just how huge it is.  Up to this point I had been pleasantly surprised by how walkable the cities I’d visited had been, and how compact their city centers were.  Any time we took the Metro in Paris we seemed to be going from one end of a line to the other.  It was a bit daunting for my mom to give me full responsibility for navigating our way through Paris by map!

Our first destination was the most famous of Paris’s sights — the Eiffel Tower.  I had seen the Eiffel Tower in pictures and movies so many times that I honestly wasn’t expecting to be very impressed.  I’m happy to say that I was wrong.  The weather was gorgeous as we walked past carousels and Parisians relaxing on the green lawns nearby, crossed the Seine and approached the Eiffel Tower.  I really was in awe of how beautiful it is.  I was just a bit taken aback, though, when I saw that the area was patrolled by French soldiers carrying what appeared to me to be AK-47s (although I’m no expert).

Next we walked to Les Invalides, a beautiful 17th century former military hospital, where we saw the tomb of Napoleon in the Chapel of St. Louis-des-Invalides.

We managed to make it to the Rodin Museum just about 45 minutes before closing.  I think both my mom and I agreed that this was our very favorite place in Paris.  By this point in the semester I had already visited quite a few art museums, but the Rodin museum — filled exclusively with sculpture — was completely new.  Rodin’s sculptures — both the famous (e.g., The Thinker) and lesser known — were magnificent.  I know very little about sculpture, but I found the emotion conveyed in each work to be incredible.  The museum’s estate itself was nearly as beautiful as the works themselves.  We could easily (and happily) have spent hours there.

We spent Sunday morning at the Louvre.  After maneuvering our way through the runners in the Paris Marathon we entered through the glass Pyramid.  The Louvre is enormous.  We tried to narrow down what we would cover and certainly saw many of the most famous works, such as the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Mona Lisa.  The Mona Lisa is notably small, and it was a little sad (though understandable) that it was covered in a huge sheet of glass.  My favorite room held Michelangelo’s Dying Slave (which we had studied briefly in one of my classes at Georgetown) and Antonio Canova’s Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss.

In the afternoon we toured the Paris Opera House — home of the Phantom of the Opera.  It was fascinating to me to compare to the opera house in Vienna.  Although the two were essentially designed and constructed over the same years in the mid-19th century, I was really struck by their differences.  I had thought that the opera house in Vienna was stunning, but I couldn’t believe how spectacularly ornate the Paris Opera House is.  I loved walking up the Grand Staircase, and after initially finding Chagall’s controversial painting on the ceiling (added in 1964) a strange touch, I decided that I actually really liked it.

On Monday, rather than taking the Metro, we walked through Luxemborg Garden to the Île de la Cité — the island in the center of Paris, on which Notre Dame is situated.  The Cathedral was a lot to take in, but I attempted to follow Jean de Jandun’s advice and “attend more diligently to the whole and the parts.”  The size of the cathedral itself conveyed power and majesty, but my favorite aspect was the pieta under the cross on the altar.  Close by was Sainte-Chapelle– built by King Louis IX to house the supposed Crown of Thorns.  I had already been to countless European churches at this point, but had seen nothing approximating this chapel.  It was much more intimate than the famous cathedrals and surrounded by brilliant stained glass windows that engulfed the chapel in warm, colorful light.  We also stopped into the Conciergerie, the former prison where Marie Antoinette spent her final days.

After a lunch of crepes we walked to the other little island in the Seine — the Île Saint-Louis.  A quiet and artsy area, it seemed like it would be such a cool place to live.  There we stopped for gelato and shopped at a few little boutiques before crossing back to the Rive Gauche (left bank) of Paris, where we spent at least an hour browsing in Shakespeare & Co.  A second-hand English bookstore, Shakespeare & Co. was once a favorite haunt of authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound,  and James Joyce.  We found quite a few great books — including an original copy of the nearly 900-page report by the Warren Commission (a.k.a. The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy).  Luckily my mom agreed to take the books back to the US for me!

Monday evening we took a nighttime cruise on the Seine so that we could truly appreciate the City of Lights.  The Eiffel Tower was the most impressive of the illuminated buildings and monuments on the banks of the river — its lights sparkling every hour.

Tuesday, our final day in Paris, was fairly relaxed.  We took the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe — another Paris icon that I wasn’t expecting to be very impressive.  Again, I was very pleasantly surprised by how beautiful I found the Arc to be.  From there we walked the famous shopping street Champs-Élysées, where we bought a few macarons (chocolate, caramel and rose) at the adorable Ladurée — the patisserie where they were created.  Keeping with the shopping theme for the day we visited the famous French department store Printemps.  Essentially everything was out of my price range, and I actually found it a bit disgusting to consider how much people would be willing to pay for the designer garments.  However, I absolutely loved their fabulously colorful window displays — each mannequin having a flowering shrub for a head.  I realized that having always heard of the reputation of Parisian women for being très chic, I was actually quite unimpressed by the general lack of style I saw around the city.  I find Copenhagen to be the most stylish city in Europe.

On Wednesday morning, we were off on an early-morning train to Switzerland, which I will recap in my next post.

At this point, all of my photo galleries are up to date (even if my posts are not), so for pictures of beautiful Paris, see “Photos: France.”

Vienna

I spent the last weekend in March on a study tour to Vienna with the 20 DIS students enrolled in the course Vienna: Capital of Classical Music.  After studying the music of composers such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven,  Schubert, Mahler and Schoenberg, who had spent much of their lives in Vienna, we traveled to the city itself to understand why it was — and still is — the capital of classical music.

We flew to Vienna on Thursday night so that we would be able to get an early start on Friday.  Friday morning began with a visit to the Musikverein, Vienna’s famous concert hall and one of the best acoustic spaces in the world.  It is the venue of the Vienna New Year’s Concert, which is broadcast worldwide.  A new organ had just been installed in the largest concert hall (Goldener Saal) and when we visited musicians were preparing for the concert at which it would be “unveiled.”  We also visited the beautiful, more intimate Brahmssaal, which is used primarily for solo pianists and vocalists.  With this first visit it was already obvious how ingrained music is in the culture of the Viennese, as the impressive Musikverein hosts frequent concerts reserved just for children.  The children were even going to have their own private concert to reveal the organ.

We then went on a walking tour of the city, led by a local historian.  The expansive Hofburg Palace was probably the most impressive of the day’s sights.  The weather was beautiful and students and families were relaxing on the palace lawns, but our guide also reminded us that it was on those lawns that Austrians cheered as Hitler, standing on the palace balcony, proclaimed the Anschluss of Austria.  The last stop of our tour was the Leopold Museum, which houses collections of Austrian modern art, such as “Life and Death” by Gustav Klimt, one of the famous artists of the Vienna Secession Movement.

During our free time in the afternoon my friends and I visited the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, located in the Hofburg complex.  We saw many of the beautiful Lippizzaner stallions (who are very selectively chosen), but unfortunately weren’t permitted to take pictures.  Although the training is extensive for both horses and riders, I was surprised to learn the very minimal requirements to be accepted as a trainee at the riding school.  Any citizen of an EU country between the ages of 18 and 25 who speaks both English and German may be accepted.  They actually prefer that you have little to no previous riding experience!

Vienna is famous for its café culture, which was at its height at the turn of the century, when cafés were especially frequented by artists and intellectuals.  So, for dinner we chose one of the most well-known, Café Griensteidl.  For dessert I made sure to order the famous Sachertorte, a chocolate cake with a thin layer of apricot jam and dark chocolate icing, first created in Vienna.  The Viennese clearly still take their cafés very seriously — e.g., every café waiter dresses in a tux.

We met our class for an evening concert by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Konzerthaus (where we had fabulous 11th row seats on the floor).  The orchestra first performed Wendepunkt, a strange modern composition by David Philip Hefti, and Schelomo, composed by Ernest Bloch, who drew on Jewish folk music .  The main event was Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, which we had studied in class.

We had a couple of group visits on Saturday morning — first to the Mozarthaus and then to the Haus der Musik.  Mozarthaus is the only one of Mozart’s apartments still in existence and it now serves as a museum featuring exhibits on Mozart’s life and music.  The Haus der Musik is part history museum, providing background on the major Viennese composers, and part “interactive discovery museum,” featuring displays designed to understand the science behind music.

Because the course is just a one-credit elective, the study tour was much more relaxed than my previous DIS trips with my core class, and so we were given a great deal of free time on Saturday.  A couple of my friends and I spent the day wandering around Vienna, first going to the famous — and overwhelming — St. Stephen’s Cathedral before exploring the quiet streets and squares of Vienna, which seemed to have a beautiful church around every corner.  Somewhere along the way we made sure to pick up gelato.  I tried amaretto, which was incredible!

Our professors had told us that a Saturday evening at the opera is classic Vienna, and so attending Arabella (an opera by Richard Strauss) was the event I had really been most anticipating.  I changed into the only dress I brought with me to Europe and hoped that I wouldn’t stand out amongst the regulars, whom we were told frequently wear evening gowns.  We first ate dinner at the nearby Restaurant Korso bei der Oper, which was incredibly elegant.  The opera house itself was beautiful, but it was the atmosphere that left the greatest impression on me.   I was happily surprised to see a great mix of formality, including many college-age students dressed in jeans, who had bought standing-room tickets.  I loved that a “night out” for students in Vienna included going to the opera, and that the opera was even accessible for those on a tighter budget.  While many of my DIS classmates were seated in boxes (which certainly look elegant, but don’t have the best view), my ticket — which was the 13th row on the floor, was phenomenal.  What a way to experience my first opera!

Saturday marked the end of our official academic and music-related visits, and on Sunday morning our class walked to the incredible baroque Belvedere Palace which now houses an expansive collection of Austrian art — including Klimt’s most famous work, “The Kiss” (which was absolutely stunning in person).  Sadly, my camera had died while at the opera and I forgot the adapter for my charger, so I wasn’t able to take any pictures.  In the afternoon we were free for a few more hours, so a few of us went to the Natural History Museum, where I have to admit I was more interested in the beautiful architecture of the building than in the collections.  Finally, before catching our flight that evening we stopped to sample apple strudel– another Viennese specialty!

Vienna was such a classic city, truly infused by music.  Pictures can be found in the gallery “Photos: Vienna”, although to get the full Viennese experience you may want to put on some Mozart or Beethoven in the background.

Budapest

Our flights both to and from Kosovo included stops in Budapest, so eleven of us from my core class decided to spend the rest of the weekend (Friday, March 11-Sunday, March 13) in Budapest instead of returning directly to Copenhagen.  I am so thrilled that my friend Laura convinced me to make a somewhat last-minute decision to spend those 48 hours in Budapest, as I think it has to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

I traveled with my friends Laura, Jenna, Becca and Kristin.  The other six students from our class were staying at a different hostel, although we made plans to meet up with them later in the weekend.  We had a really long (though thankfully inexpensive) cab ride from the airport to our hostel, and we arrived late enough that the sun was setting as we drove along the Danube and had our first — absolutely stunning — views of the city.  Our hostel was in an old apartment building, and although the initial walk up the stairs to our floor seemed a little sketchy, our room (which consisted of 8 bunk beds that we shared with 3 strangers) was really nice and the hostel staff was so helpful.  We basically had no plans beforehand, but with the help of the receptionist we mapped out a list of places to go.

On Friday night we first grabbed dinner at a traditional Hungarian pub recommended by the hostel, where I had potato pancakes filled with vegetables.  Our hostel was centrally located, so we were able to just wander past St. Stephen’s basilica and down to the Danube where we had an incredible view across to the illuminated Buda Castle and St. Matthias church.  The city at night just took my breath away.  We wandered a bit more, finding a pedestrian square where musicians were playing.  It was so relaxing and the city felt quintessentially European.

We woke up really early on Saturday morning because we knew that we had a lot that we wanted to fit in.  The city of Budapest is actually split into the Buda side (the west bank, where Buda Castle and Matthias Church are located) and the Pest side (the east side, where our hostel was).  We headed back to the river and walked across the Chain Bridge to the Buda side, climbing the hill up to Matthias Church, a fourteenth century church with a beautifully colorful tiled roof.   The church is surrounded by a kind of fortress walkway that offered picturesque views across the Danube to Parliament on the Pest side.

In attempting to find the underground castle caves (a UNESCO world heritage site), we wandered around the narrow, winding streets of Buda past beautiful little colored shops and houses.  I wasn’t too impressed with the caves — a series of labyrinths that were virtually unlit, had sound effects presumably intended to frighten visitors, and strange carvings protruding from the walls.

Once we emerged above ground again, we headed towards Buda Castle.  The palace complex was impressive and though larger and grander than Amalienborg in Denmark, I still was reminded of Queen Margrethe’s residence.  The weather was perfect — 60s and sunny.  After Denmark’s dreary weather, this was our first real feeling of spring.  We spread out on the grass near the palace for a few minutes, eating the cinnamon-sugar Hungarian chimney (funnel) cake we bought from one of the nearby street vendors.

It was nearing lunch time, so we began our walk back towards the Danube, crossing one of the other bridges that led us to the Central Market Hall.  Although it’s the largest indoor market in Budapest, we happened to enter at the same time as three of our friends from class.  After maneuvering through the crowds filling the market in the hour before closing, we found a lunch stall and the eight of us ate together in the square outside.  We split with them again after lunch and went shopping and strolling through the pedestrian streets.  Before returning to our hostel for a nap we visited the inside of St. Stephen’s Basilica.  We met up with the rest of the DIS students for a fun dinner before spending the evening searching (unsuccessfully) for mulled wine — a supposedly popular traditional drink in Budapest.

On Sunday morning we headed straight for the Széchenyi thermal baths — the largest medicinal bathing hall in Europe.  After a long walk, passing through Hero’s Square, we arrived at the baths, which were a relaxing reward after the extensive traveling and sight-seeing of the last week.  The outdoor baths were my favorite and definitely the most beautiful, but many of the indoor baths were interesting.  We tried the mint-infused pool, but skipped the sulfur.  Before catching the train to the airport in the afternoon, we enjoyed a delicious lunch, topped off by banana splits!

Budapest was my first experience of traveling independently, without the helpful planning of DIS, and it couldn’t have been more wonderful.  The city was easy to navigate, the weather was perfect and the weekend relaxed.  Yet I was still overwhelmed by the beauty of Budapest.  It was really my idea of the ideal European city.

Check out the pictures under “Photos: Budapest.”  Paris is not the only city that should be known as the “City of Lights”!

Kosovo

Although I had been anticipating the study tour to Kosovo for many months, and studying the conflict in the weeks leading up to departure, I still had no real expectations of what I would find in Kosovo.  The six days I spent in that country (from March 6 to 11) with my War Crimes and Human Rights class were unlike anything I have experienced before.  My time in Kosovo has been the most rewarding of my months abroad.

We arrived in the capital city of Pristina on Sunday afternoon.  On our drive from the airport to the Hotel Real, we passed half-destroyed buildings– remnants of the 1998-99 conflict that would command much of our attention during the next few days.  Still, construction (however haphazard) was springing up from the midst of these ruins.  Many of our meetings and discussions would also focus on the challenges of state-building and reconciliation in such a newly-independent country– independence still unrecognized by more than half of the world’s countries.  The other striking feature of this first drive was the Bill Clinton statute smiling and waving at us as we entered the city.  That one of our first sights was the former US president is indicative of Kosovo’s incredible appreciation of the United States for its humanitarian intervention in defense of the Albanian majority against oppression by the Serbian government.  Actions taken by our country in a conflict that we were too young to remember largely dictated our reception by the people of Kosovo.  As Americans, we would experience the appreciation of the Albanians, and the hostility of the Serbs, throughout much of our trip.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon on a guided walking tour of Pristina.  We took in the bizarre architecture of the National Library, entered the Carshi Mosque (Kosovo is 90% Muslim, though society is largely secular), and walked down the main pedestrian street — named for Mother Teresa (my confirmation saint, and an ethnic Albanian whose parents were from Kosovo).  Signs of the conflict were unavoidable — we walked down a city block lined with pictures of those still missing following the war.

Our first visit on Monday morning was to the International Civilian Office – European Union Special Representative to Kosovo (ICO-EUSR), which supports Kosovo on the path to full European integration.  We covered a broad range of topics — from security to culture and education to politics.  In the afternoon we visited the European Union Rule of Law Mission (EULEX), which provides support to the police and justice system.  While EULEX judges have jurisdiction in Kosovo, their primary responsibilities are monitoring, mentoring and advising the Kosovars.  Still, local judges and/or prosecutors sometimes refuse to participate in particularly difficult cases — facing threats or even attacks — and then EULEX takes over.  For example, EULEX is beginning an investigation into reports that the current Prime Minister and former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Hashim Thaçi, was responsible for human rights violations — including trafficking organs of Serbian prisoners — during the conflict.

My friend Laura and I spent our couple of hours of free time wandering around the center of Pristina and found to our surprise that the pizza in Kosovo is delicious!  We then met our class for a joint lecture with political science students at the University of Pristina.  Following the lecture we ate dinner with the students.  At my table were three students from the University of Pristina and four of us from DIS.  Our discussion ranged from our families to pop culture and politics (both American and Kosovar) to the “American dream.”  Following dinner they asked us to go with them for coffee, and took us to a really cool place that was packed with young Kosovars.  At the end of the night we didn’t want to say goodbye and so arranged to meet them on Wednesday afternoon when they were done with class and we would have a few hours of free time.

On Tuesday we left Pristina for the day and drove north toward Mitrovica.  On the way, we stopped at a memorial for the Battle of Kosovo Polje, one of the largest battles ever fought in medieval Europe.  The view from the top of the monument was beautiful.

Mitrovica is split in half by a bridge that literally divides the Albanians from the Serbs.  The Serbs who live on the north consider the city part of Serbia and have an entirely independent system of governance from the south.  While acts of violence and conflict have generally declined in recent years, it is still considered a risk for an Albanian or Serb to cross the bridge.  Our class briefly walked across the bridge to the Serbian side, but as Americans it would have been unwise to spend time in the north.  Back on the Albanian (south) side of the bridge, we visited the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) regional center in Mitrovica.  They focus their efforts both on democratization, by giving Albanians and Serbs a forum to voice complaints as a means of preventing conflict, and human rights, by monitoring local institutions, especially the courts.

During lunch, all of the girls in our class were given flowers in honor of International Women’s Day — which is certainly more widely celebrated in Kosovo than it is in the US.  As if our large group of Americans wasn’t already conspicuous enough, now more than half of us were carrying around red carnations!  It was of course a very sweet gesture.  In the afternoon we visited Community Building Mitrovica, an NGO where Albanians and Serbs work side by side.  Together they foster civil society in the town by promoting interethnic dialogue and advancing the common interests of all members of the community.  Among the most inspiring projects is their Rock School, aimed at local youth.  Although the tutorials for Albanian and Serbian students are segregated in Mitrovica for security reasons, once a year in Macedonia the musical talents of all the children are joined together in a concert for their parents– no longer divided by ethnicity.

On Wednesday we split into small groups– each of which visited a different NGO.  My group chose to visit the Kosovar Gender Studies Center, where we met with the executive director.  She spent over an hour discussing the particular issues facing women in Kosovo following the conflict and the declaration of independence.  I was incredibly impressed with the important work that the center is doing, and its focus on gender equality is unique among the dozens of NGOs operating in the country.  We each left with a copy of the book History is Herstory Too, which was written and published by the Center — the result of hundreds of interviews with women in Kosovo, compiled in order to present a history of women in the country from 1980-2004.  Because of this visit to the Kosovar Gender Studies Center, I decided to conduct legal research on domestic violence in Kosovo for my next course paper.

After another delicious class lunch we had a break– which is when four of us met back up with our friends from the University of Pristina.  They had promised to show us the beautiful Gërmia Park, but first asked if we could stop by their former high school.  Although our visit was unannounced, the vice principal welcomed us, his eyes even filling with tears as he thanked us, telling us that only Americans have truly understood the Kosovars’ struggle for independence.  He also interrupted a ninth grade social studies class, where the students stood up and applauded as he introduced us.  It was really interesting being so appreciated just by virtue of being Americans, but at the same time the welcome we received was also a little overwhelming.

We then took a city bus out to spend time in the beautiful national park.  It was such a privilege to spend time with these students, and after our discussions I am convinced that our friends are really the next leaders of Kosovo.  We had to say a final goodbye in the evening, though, since we were meeting our class at the National Theater for a performance by the Kosovo Ballet Group, which was another fun cultural experience.

Thursday may have been the most random day that we spent in Kosovo, but it might also have been my favorite.  We arrived in the town of Pec (Peja) — about a 1.5 hour drive west from Pristina — mid-morning and began with a short walking tour.  After that we took a short ride outside the city to Visoki Decani, a Serbian Orthodox monastery.  One of the brothers gave us a tour of their church, where the walls are covered in beautiful frescoes.  Unfortunately cameras were not allowed inside the church, but panorama shots of parts of the interior can be found here.

We headed back to Pec where we were given a little time for lunch on our own.  Six of us went to a beautiful open-air restaurant recommended by our guide.  We devoured the overflowing breadbasket and the lamb meatballs (a local specialty) and ran back to the bus in time to arrive at the Patriarchate of Pec — a Serbian Orthodox convent on the edge of the mountains of Rugova Gorge.  Although our arrival was expected, no one met us at the gate.  Instead, we first heard angry whispers and then were surprised to see nuns in a second-floor window dismissively “shooing” us away.  Only after our guide made an apparently convincing case that we were students from Denmark (rather than from the US) did an English-speaking nun give us a tour of their beautiful church, which is the spiritual seat of Serbian archbishops.

We then drove into Rugova Gorge until the mountainous roads were too steep and narrow for our bus to safely continue.  We sampled the cheese at the local cheese factory before hiking up to a tiny village where we were greeted by a local farmer and his wife– who are one of just 15 families who have remained in the isolated village that historically was home to 200 families.  They were incredibly welcoming– serving our class homemade cornbread and fresh milk from their cows.  After a hike back down to our bus we made a quick visit to the water factory and then a school for the blind in Pec.  After a delicious dinner we drove back to our hotel in Pristina.

We made one final visit– to the headquarters of NATO’s peacekeeping force (KFOR)– before leaving on Friday afternoon.  We met with a US Brigadier General who presented to us the areas with the greatest security concerns (which included some discussion of Mitrovica) as well as the process of turning security operations over to local forces.  After a final lunch we returned to Pristina’s international airport.

Some pictures from Kosovo are uploaded under the gallery “Photos: Kosovo.”

Hamburg and Neuengamme Concentration Camp

On the weekend of February 26-27, I traveled with my Holocaust & Genocide class to Germany to visit the city of Hamburg and Neuengamme Concentration Camp.  I have loved this class from the beginning, but the study tour was one of the primary reasons I initially decided to take the class.  While the tour was emotionally draining, it was also an incredibly powerful experience.

On Saturday morning we departed Copenhagen by bus, took a ferry to Germany, and drove to Hamburg.  We spent Saturday touring Hamburg and learning about its history during WWII.  Approximately 90% of the city was destroyed during the war by the Allied bombing.  So, much of the city is newly rebuilt since the 1940s.  Still, traces of the war — as well as the Holocaust — can be found around much of the city.  The sidewalks have “tripping stones” inscribed with the names of Holocaust victims.  We visited St. Nikolai church, which is in ruins; only the bell tower and a few walls remain.  The city has dedicated the site to civilian victims of the war, in both the Allied and Axis countries.  We also visited the site of a manufacturer for the gas used in the Holocaust.  It is now an office building, marked with a memorial plaque.

Early Sunday morning we went to Janusz-Korczak School, located in a rather industrial area of the city.  On April 20, 1945, twenty Jewish children — who had been subjected to medical experiments at Neuengamme Concentration Camp — were brought to the school and hanged, along with two French doctors, two Dutch caretakers, and 24 Soviet prisoners of war.  The building, including the room in which the children were killed, is an operating school, but beyond the playground is a Rose Garden Memorial, with one plaque for each child.  The people — even the children of Hamburg — live with physical remembrances all around them of these horrors.  The city has such an interesting relationship with the war and the Holocaust, which seem to quietly pervade much of the city.  While the memorials in the city are unobtrusive, they are profound.

We spent the remaining hours at Neuengamme Concentration Camp, which is less than 10 miles outside the center of Hamburg.  Our class was virtually alone on the grounds of the camp, and throughout there was a pervading calm that felt almost unnatural as it was juxtaposed with the unspeakable events that we knew had occurred there.  The camp was used as a German prison following the end of the war, but many of the original buildings remain, including the brick factory where many concentration camp prisoners worked, the watchtower, the SS staff headquarters, and two of the barracks.  The sites of the other barracks are outlined by wire and filled with bricks that the prisoners themselves had made.  I will not go into detailed stories of the conditions at the camp.  Simply put, the camp used extermination through labor, resulting in approximately 106,000 deaths from 1938 to 1945.

Some of my photographs from Hamburg and Neuengamme can be found under “Photos: Germany.”

Open Prison

Last Wednesday, February 23, I visited an open prison with my class on Criminology and Criminal Justice in Scandinavia.

Having talked with other DIS students who aren’t in the class, I realize that Americans have a difficult time understanding the concept of open prisons, so I’ll try to explain how they work before I go into details about our visit.

The vast majority of Danes who are sentenced to prison will serve their sentences in open, rather than closed, prisons.  Others who are serving longer sentences will typically be transferred from closed to open prisons as they near release.  The primary guiding principle for open prisons is normalization.  Normalization does not imply that the prison authorities are trying to make the inmates like “normal” Danes, but rather that the conditions of the prisons are to reflect as much as possible normal living conditions in Denmark.  The rationale behind the philosophy of normalization is that they want inmates to comfortably transition to living in society once they are released, rather than be shocked by a total change in lifestyle that might then make it difficult to work and function in society, and therefore might lead them to turn to crime again.

Prisoners are responsible for themselves.  In practice, this means that they are responsible for buying their own groceries (at an on-site shop with a stipend they are given), cooking their own meals, and doing their own cleaning and laundry (they wear their own clothes, not “prison garb”).  They are responsible for choosing whether they want to work for extra money or take courses while in prison, and many have the option to work or go to school off-site during the day.  What is shocking to most Americans is that open prisons do not have security fences to prevent escapes.  Prisoners could literally just walk off the prison site if they chose.  But they are responsible for staying at the prison– and virtually all do.

My class visited the open prison in Jyderup, which is about a 1.5 hour drive from Copenhagen.  The prison is situated in the town, which has about 4000 people.  Our class was met by Jeanette, one of the prison wardens, and Roland, one of the inmates, who led us on a guided tour of the prison facilities.  We first visited 3 wards in the prison, which felt somewhat like college dorm halls.  If inmates are serving sentences longer than 3 months, they are each given their own small rooms with a bed, desk, closet, bookshelf, small refrigerator, and private bathroom.  Many decorate their rooms with art from home and bring a television set.  The inmates in a ward share a large kitchen and common living area.  They are responsible for cleaning the common spaces themselves.  Many cook and share dinner together.  My professor made a point of showing us that the kitchens include the typical large knives used for cooking, which all inmates have free access to use.  We saw a few prisoners in the common areas while we were there, which made me a little uncomfortable– not because I was concerned for my safety but because I felt like we were invading their privacy.

Next we visited the chapel and were told about all of the different ways in which their chaplain serves the prison.  She visits the inmates and chats with them throughout the day, holds services on Sunday, directs the choir, hosts lectures and weekly dinners and movie screenings.  We saw a flier for the Fastelavn (Danish Mardi Gras/Halloween) party she was organizing– which the inmates’ children were invited to attend.  I felt like she was one of our Georgetown Chaplains-in-Residence!  Finally, we stopped into the gym.  It had the normal open floor space to play basketball, soccer, volleyball, etc.  There was also a weight-lifting area for inmates who will certify that they are not using steroids.  What we thought was strangest were the two tanning beds at the gym, which the inmates can pay to use.  Jeanette explained that their philosophy is essentially if something doesn’t make you more criminal then you should be able have access to it in prison.

Following the tour, we sat down to talk with Jeanette and Roland over coffee, tea and Danishes.  From my perspective (and I believe also Roland’s), possibly the best aspect of the prison system is the relatively free access of inmates to their families.  Inmates can have their families/friends (up to 4 adults at a time + children) over any time from Friday afternoon to Sunday night.  They are free to take their visitors anywhere within their ward or to go outside on the grounds.  Many cook meals and eat with their families when they visit, and when the weather is warmer many have picnics with their families outside.  Inmates may also be granted leave to go home over the weekend (Fri-Sun) up to once every 3 weeks.

My favorite part about going to the open prison was meeting Roland and hearing his perspective.  Roland is 46, was convicted for a cocaine-related offense and sentenced to 6 years in prison.  Because his sentence was more than 5 years he first went to closed prison, but was later transferred to the open prison.  Honestly, if I had met Roland in any other context, it never would have crossed my mind that he is a convict.  He is incredibly articulate and really just seems to have his life together.  That is not to say that it hasn’t been a process for him to reach this point.  He told us that he chose to go through drug rehabilitation when he first entered prison.  Since then he has really been using his time in prison as an opportunity to change his life.  Although he had received a good education before he went to prison, he has now been taking courses and is on his way to becoming a psychotherapist once he is released from prison within the next year.  He is very involved in activities within the prison– serving as his ward representative and editor of the prison newspaper, taking classes, attending NA meetings and singing in the choir.

His perspective on other prisoners was also really enlightening.  He said that while about half do really take the time to improve their lives through education or work while in prison, the other half seem to just wait out their time playing PlayStation and plan to return to crime once released, which can be discouraging to someone like him.  He also recognized that most people who are in prison have (unlike him) come from some rather horrible experiences earlier in life.  Although it is easy to idealize Denmark, there are still many people who face disadvantages.  In my Criminology and Criminal Justice course we have studied how those who commit crime in Denmark do tend to have faced difficult circumstances– growing up in poorer households, with parents with drug or alcohol problems or who were involved in crime, and many times facing difficulties in school.  Although there are no financial barriers to education in Denmark, the education system is by no means perfect.  Denmark — which has always been a very homogenous country — seems to have a difficult relationship with immigrants.  This is apparent in the actions of the police, who pretty clearly target young Muslim-looking men.  Discriminatory practices are also apparent in other areas, such as education.  Our professor told us a joke that Danes use to capture this problem.  A teacher is quizzing her first-grade class on spelling and asks Søren (a typical Danish name), “Søren, spell cat.”   Søren responds with “C-A-T” and she praises him.  Then, she turns to Mohammed and and asks him, “Spell discrimination.”

So, while there are many aspects of Danish society and government that I admire — including much of the philosophy behind the open prisons — from my limited experience I do recognize that the Danes also have their fair share of problems.

I don’t have any pictures to post from this field study.  Out of respect for the inmates’ privacy, cameras were not allowed within the prison.

I am leaving for Kosovo tomorrow morning with my War Crimes class and will be there until Friday.  I’ve decided to spend the rest of the weekend in Budapest with some of the people from my class.  My next posts will be about last weekend’s trip to Germany with my Holocaust and Genocide class, my trip to Kosovo and my weekend in Budapest.

See “Photos: Germany” page for pictures from Hamburg and Neuengamme Concentration Camp.

Field Studies

Wednesday, which is notoriously a pretty crummy day of the week, might be my new favorite– a day that here at DIS consists of field studies instead of classes.  Field studies are one more component of the school’s emphasis on experiential learning.  As our professors are professionals with impressive careers in the fields in which they teach, they have great connections that make these field studies more than the average school field trip.  And they are also a wonderful way to encourage us to keep exploring Copenhagen.

Last Wednesday, February 9, I had my first field study, which was for my course on Health Economics and Health Policy in Europe.  My professor works in the Ministry of Health (and was the personal secretary for the former Minister of Health), and for our first field study he took us to Parliament.  I’ve walked by the Parliament building (Christiansborg Palace) quite a few times since I first saw it during the orientation scavenger hunt and I couldn’t wait to go inside.

Our class was met by Jonas Dahl– one of the 179 Members of Parliament.  He is in his early 30s, and his youth and enthusiasm (and very casual style and manner) were really striking.  He is a member of the Socialistisk Folkeparti– the Socialist People’s Party– and is their health policy spokesman.  While the government for the past 10 years has been a center/right-wing coalition of Venstre (Liberals, but definitely not like American liberals; think libertarians) and Det Konservative Folkeparti (Conservative People’s Party), the next election will be held this year and is expected to result in a left-wing coalition between Socialdemokraterne (the Social Democrats) and the Socialist People’s Party.  So, Jonas is potentially the next Minister of Health.

First, Jonas took us on a short tour of Christiansborg.  He walked us up the stairs where the official exchange of power occurs between the prime ministers following elections, showed us Denmark’s Constitution, and then walked us to the portrait gallery of the former prime ministers.  This might’ve been my favorite part of the entire building because it was so different than anything I would expect to see in the US (and honestly was pretty hilarious).  The portrait of Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Prime Minister from 2001-2009 and currently Secretary General of NATO) had just recently been revealed.  It is pretty hard to describe, but I think the best word would be “cheesy.”  Rasmussen features a tanned face and Botex-grin, and is flanked on one side by a desert and fighter plane (representative of the war in Afghanistan) and on the other by a forest (representative of environmentalism).  Another former prime minister chose to have has portrait consist of a swirl of ugly brown colors and an unrecognizable, virtually inhuman face.  I didn’t catch his name, but Jonas told us that he was mentally unstable (if not seriously crazy).

Next, Jonas took us into the Royal Family’s balcony overlooking the chamber where the Folketing (Parliament) meets.  The chamber was stately and beautiful, yet also felt surprisingly intimate rather than intimidating.  While walking past parliamentary offices on our way to the Socialist People’s Party’s meeting room we passed the perpetual elevators used by the Members of Parliament.  To the amusement of Jonas, we were all more fascinated by these elevators than almost anything else.  The elevators can probably comfortably fit 2-3 people, have no doors or buttons, and never stop.  You just hop on when the little compartment begins to pass your floor and then hop off when you are passing the floor you want.  (It reminded me of something I’d see in Hogwarts.)

In our meeting with Jonas, he discussed the major issues facing the socialized health care system of Denmark– focusing on the recent development of private hospitals and health insurance, as well as on the need for preventative medicine in Denmark (which I’ve noticed has a rather astonishing percentage of smokers).  He also more generally covered how political parties and elections function in the country, and briefly discussed other important features of the “welfare state” about which the Danes are so proud (and which in many ways is so foreign to us).

See the photo gallery “Field Studies” for pictures from inside Christiansborg.

Today, Wednesday, February 16, I had two field studies– both to the Frilandsmuseet (Danish Resistance Museum).  I met my Danish Language & Culture class this morning at 8:30 and our professor first took us to a bakery for breakfast.  I had hot chocolate (which tastes so much better in Denmark than in the US) and a tebirke, which is flaky, buttery dough folded over marzipan and topped with poppy seeds.  It was a wonderful way to start the morning.  Then we took the bus to the museum and had a guided tour.  I also had a tour of the museum in the afternoon with my Holocaust & Genocide class.  The tours were about the same, but it was completely fascinating.  The little knowledge I had of Danish WWII history came from Number the Stars, so I knew virtually nothing before today and was happy to go twice.  Then, after the second tour of the day, my Holocaust class went to a café, so I got my second hot chocolate of the day and a piece of apple pie.  I really love that DIS pays for us to have these little meals– not just because they’re delicious, but also because it’s another great way to spend time with people outside of class.

While the museum really wasn’t very large, the tours were packed with information.  I took pictures during the first tour, and during the second I tried to take notes so that I would be able to provide a good recap of Denmark’s WWII experience, which is a complicated history of collaboration and resistance….

Denmark was invaded by 30,000 German soldiers in the early morning of April 9, 1940.  Germany was primarily interested in controlling Norway– both because its coastal waters were of strategic importance in effectively dealing with the British blockade and because Norway had valuable natural resources.  Because Denmark lies between Germany and Norway, the Germans decided to take control of Denmark on their way to Norway.  Given that the Danish military consisted of 15,000 conscripts who had no combat experience (Denmark was neutral during WWI) and outdated equipment, this wasn’t a difficult feat.  The Danish government surrendered after just 2 hours of fighting and agreed to a policy of collaboration with the Germans in order to prevent further loss of life before the inevitable defeat and occupation.  Only 16 Danish soldiers died in this short defense of the country.

When Danes woke up that morning, many headed off to work without knowing that they were now a Nazi-occupied country.  Many called the Danish police to report the presence of German soldiers on the streets.  Soon the Danish government released fliers explaining to the Danish people that they would be cooperating with the occupying Germans, and the Germans produced propaganda news releases claiming that they were stationed in Denmark to protect the Danes from a British attack.  Thereafter the Danes would be paying the salaries of the German soldiers stationed there to “protect” them.

The policy of cooperation, while naturally controversial today, no doubt did save many lives and meant a much more normal existence for most Danes than had they been ruled by the Germans directly.  Although the Danish Parliament faced pressures from the Germans, Danish laws did remain in place, and both Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning and King Christian X remained popular.  The King tried to represent normalcy for the Danish people and continued his morning horseback ride through Copenhagen.  While he continued to ride without any security, during WWII he began to be escorted by Danes on their bicycles.  In this first year of occupation Danes really had no resistance movement, but they would express their Danish pride by gathering in the thousands in the King’s garden to sing traditional Danish songs.

Once Hitler declared war on the Soviet Union the Communists became the enemy and the Germans essentially outlawed the Communist Party in Denmark, arresting thousands of party members.  Notoriously staunch proponents of political freedom, Danes (who never considered outlawing Denmark’s small Nazi Party) as a whole greatly resented this serious restriction.  The beginnings of a resistance movement began among the Danish Communists, who started printing newspapers in opposition to the Nazis.  We were also shown a satirical cartoon many distributed, entitled “5 pigs.”  Four pigs were printed on a piece of paper, along with directions on how to fold the paper to reveal the 5th pig– which was the face of Hitler.  The museum featured many of the makeshift printing presses used, and my favorite was made from parts of an old bicycle.  On another related note, one of the guides mentioned that while the Communists were the first (and probably largest) group of Danes to be persecuted by the Nazis, their losses (and contributions) were not recognized in Denmark in any real way until much after the end of WWII because the Cold War struggle against Communism began so soon after the end of WWII.

While many Danes did resent the treatment of the Communists, at the same time about 12,000 Danish soldiers volunteered to become special members of the SS and fight on the eastern front against the Soviets.  Other Danes supported the German military in order to provide for their families.  Before the German invasion of Denmark nearly 40% of Danish men were unemployed, so many– whether supporters of Nazi Germany or not– found employment in factories (both in Denmark and Germany) supplying the German army.

In 1941, the first resistance group actually engaged in sabotage against the occupying Germans began with the organization of the Churchill Club– a group of eight teenage boys who lived in Aalborg on Jutland.  Once caught in 1942, seven were sentenced to imprisonment.  Because Danish, rather than Nazi, laws applied, the eighth– at age 14– was too young to go before a judge, and so was sent home to be disciplined by his parents.  Instead, he organized a new group of saboteurs at school.  Again, because the Danish government was still in power, the remaining seven faced only short sentences, and were allowed to receive food and visits from family.  One of the boys asked his younger brother to bake him a loaf of bread with a file in it, and so the boys were able to remove the bars from their cells during the night.  The first night they just began by taking a walk around the town before returning back to the prison before morning, but the next time they went to see a movie at the theater.  Soon they began to visit friends and family, and then they resumed their sabotage against the Germans during the night (which included a failed attempt to start up a German plane, which they wanted to fly to Britain to join the British army).  Their nighttime escapades were eventually discovered and they were then sentenced to slightly longer prison sentences (although two managed to escape by threatening a guard with a fake gun they had crafted out of wood).  Apparently the adventures of the Churchill boys were featured in a comic strip in the US.

By 1942, small resistance groups were springing up around Denmark.  Beginning with the Communists, Danes began disrupting German railway transports with explosives.  53 Danes were trained by the British Special Operations Executive and then dropped by parachute into Denmark to conduct sabotage work.  In 1943-44 industrial sabotage escalated with a total of 2600 actions targeted against factories and machine works providing Germans with arms and munitions and shipyards repairing and building German ships.  By 1944 British bombers were conducting large-scale arms drops, to be used by an underground Danish army.

The Germans began pressuring the Danish government to introduce the death penalty for acts of sabotage.  The Danish Parliament would not consider implementing the death penalty and so ended their compromise with the Germans, resigning from government in August 1943.  Prior to this point no special laws had applied to Danish Jews and they had not been harmed by the Germans.  However, in October 1943, word spread that the Jews were about to be deported.  7000 Danish Jews escaped to safety in neutral Sweden, and only 116 were captured by the Nazis.

1944 marks the beginning of the “terror” in Denmark.  The Germans replaced the Danish police (which had been cooperating with German orders, but were beginning to show a slowness to respond to resistance fighters and saboteurs) with Danish soldiers returning from the eastern front.  The Danish resistance essentially began conducting acts of vigilante justice against the Danes who were cooperating with the Germans.  They would murder those rumored to be German informants, and though their operations have been largely secret it is estimated that 10% of the people they killed were innocent of any real collaboration with the Germans.  This difficult aspect of Danish resistance history also lingered after the war, when Danes had to face their population’s widespread cooperation with the Germans.  They essentially conducted witch hunts against anyone rumored to have helped the Germans– down to the baker who was thought to have given German soldiers extra bread.  Of the 40,000 arrested in the aftermath of the war, 13,500 were convicted.

The museum ends with the poignant letters written by 4 Danish saboteurs to their families just before they were to be executed by German soldiers.

Photos from the Frilandsmuseet will be uploaded to the “Field Studies” photo gallery.