>> This is James Newberry,
and I'm here with Gita Tobin on Friday,
May 22nd, 2015,
in the Social Sciences Building
at Kennesaw State University.
And Miss Tobin, do you agree to this interview?
>> I do.
>> Thank you. So let's start at the beginning.
When and where were you born?
>> It was an early Thursday,
26th of March, 1952.
My parents didn't have a car,
but my dad had a motorcycle and
my mother started labor and he got home from work,
got her on the motorcycle,
and got to the clinic.
Back then, they didn't have hospitals
where you went to. It was clinics.
And so I was born in
less than 15 minutes after a ride on a motorcycle.
So that was wonderful at one o'clock in the afternoon.
So I can't complain. It was a Thursday.
I guess that's a good thing. You're productive.
You have the whole rest of the week.
Actually, back then, if you delivered,
you had 10 days with nurturing of the baby and
the mother at these clinic hospitals
with nurse midwives who would really be stern.
Never had a baby themselves, probably.
>> And what city was it?
>> Copenhagen, Denmark.
And right now, that clinic was in
the Shadows of the Tower of the Savior,
which is the Christiania.
Christiania is the free state now in Copenhagen
and maybe some of
the viewers have known about the free state,
but actually, I was born very close to Christiania.
>> And what was your name at birth?
>> It was Gita Nothook.
That's my grandfather's Dutch name, and Johanson.
So just three,
my minister says, well,
Gita is something you name a dog or
a cat because it's the last of
Bikita but my parents says,
well, but we only going to call her Gita.
And actually, I chose it myself.
My parents got married in 1949,
May 7th, and back then,
they wore top hats,
and my dad brought out his hat.
They couldn't figure out a name for me.
So they had 100 names and they would each draw a name and
then I was maybe able to draw my own, which I did.
They let my hand go in and I pulled out Gita.
So I chose my own name.
>> What were your parents names?
>> Alice Lilian, and my dad's name was
Kill O'uwo and they were born in 1925 and 1926.
And they met right after the war on the athletic.
They were both very athletic and they were
runners and jumpers and did all that.
What you did back then,
just like you see in the movies from
the Nazi Germany basically.
>> So what did your parents do for a living?
>> Well, they finished
high school or whatever was high school back then,
which is like 10th grade.
And my mother,
she was actually au pair in London,
so she learned to speak English.
And so she went to a business school and she was
a business associate at a department store
in Copenhagen called ILLUM,
and it's still in business today.
And my father's father,
he owned a delicatessen.
So back then, you basically
took over your family business,
and it was a four year tutelage or four year school to be
a butcher shaquille which is
basically how to make sausage and so forth.
Salamis you got it.
And learning to do the business and running
a business and making the signs and so forth.
My grandfather started a small business.
All of his brothers, one was a doctor and
one owned a big furniture store,
but he was in business,
but they were all very musical.
Everybody says, your grandfather
should have been singing in the opera.
He would really have done it well.
But but they sang in
the Copenhagen Men's choir, the whole family.
>> Do you remember hearing them sing?
>> Yes. They actually sang for the king, and in 1952,
they actually were in London singing for
the King George back just before he died, actually.
>> Do you remember any of the songs?
>> Some of them? Sure.
>> Are they standard like Danish song?
>> They were standard. Yes. It was the digital.
It was regular.
>> Do you like to say for me?
>> [FOREIGN] Something like
that and then they would do.
But that means the sun rises in the east and so forth.
Be grateful for your living, basically.
>> So did you have any siblings?
>> I have a younger brother.
He is only 17 months younger.
So we were basically very close.
And I was actually
the first grandchild on my mother's side,
and my grandfather died of
liver cancer when I was a year.
So suddenly I was my grandmother's baby.
I probably was never alone.
And she read to me and sang to me
and taught me to knit, crochet.
We would sit and listen to radio stories,
like Garrison Keillor's a Prairie Home Companion,
but they would have whole stories
and you would sit and listen.
And then it would continue the next week,
so you have to come and visit
grandma. I think that was right.
>> Describe the household with your parents and brother.
>> Well, they were lucky
enough young couple moved to the suburbs,
which was just four miles from downtown Copenhagen
and it was just like you see
in the Anne Frank movie with apartment houses.
Very well planned, green spaces
and playgrounds, schools, kindergartens.
It was all planned.
The library was right there.
And so basically,
I think they went out to farmland and said,
hey, you were going to retire anyway,
so let's build some houses.
And of course,
so that meant that it was all young families.
So we had lots of friends, hundreds of friends,
and we all went to the same school and
we would play games.
And one way of knowing that I was
called home was my dad could whistle
and his whistle was so loud and I can't even do it,
but I knew that was his, better come home now.
>> Was he disciplinarian guy?.
>> No. Not really. He was probably more doting.
So like Otto Frank very much.
I see Otto Frank a lot in my dad.
>> Tell me about that connection.
>> The look he had basically.
I can see some features
between him and my father's father.
Otto was tall like my dad,
but my dad's stature was not as tall.
But they both had this protective of the family
and could stand a lot of
BS even though maybe they could be short tempered,
but in a way,
conscientious and in a way.
Well, my grandfather would
finish the crossword puzzle every day.
He was really good at that,
and we always send it in. No.
>> Well, tell me what recreational,
maybe artistic opportunities were available to
you and that you took advantage of?.
>> Well, I was a gymnast,
athletically inclined, fast twitch muscles that helps.
I excelled in that and artistically,
I was actually a very shy little girl.
If you had told me back then
that I would be doing this today, I would say, never.
I couldn't do that.
I couldn't even stand up in front of my class and sing.
So what I just did to disprove my own disbelief.
So I was a very quiet.
I was a very dour little girl.
My right foot twisted out a little bit.
My mother always said, "Stand up straight and smile."
[LAUGHTER]
So well, I like to draw.
I love to draw,
color, paint, everything.
It was my big.
I would do architectural drawings.
I would lay out how the summer house would look
and I would draw
Dior dresses or Chanel or thinking that I
could be Pierre Cardin's right hand, maybe.
We can do him, can't we? [LAUGHTER]
>> Did your family take vacations?
>> We did, and it was basically in Denmark,
but it was part of
educating me and my brother about Old Denmark,
the Vikings, and old settlements and islands.
And my father's cousin,
he was not married at that point,
and so he tagged along and we just had a good experience.
>> So what were the destinations?
>> Skagen, which is where the painters,
the Danish plein air painters would gather
every summer for their get-togethers just like in Paris,
they would meet up [FOREIGN].
They would always have the boat party.
You've seen the picture of the boat party?
That would be it. So that was special.
Then we would go well,
maybe not too many museums,
and Legoland wasn't up yet.
But Lego, I was probably one of
the first kids that got to play with Lego.
And I still remember my first gas station,
it was an Esso station and it had
curved bricks. I still have them.
>> Made out of Lego?
>> Yeah. Plastic. But it didn't
have the little suction cups underneath.
It was just a plain.
It had a slip in the side to expansion.
Very interesting. I should bring it.
>> So where did you go to school?
>> In Copenhagen. Actually, the suburb was very close to
the airport and so you know,
there were civil schools there
because with all the new families,
there were lots of young children going to school.
So there was a high demand for schools.
And at first, I was in a smaller school,
which had been there since 18 something.
And I still remember looking out
and still listening to the teacher but
seeing the old yard and
old apple trees and the tiled roofs
and they still have thatched roof there
too because there was a little
merchants' right by the school.
But that school was basically to fifth grade
and you took a test and if
you were academically inclined,
you went to another school.
If you were more of hands-on,
you would go the practical way so you could learn
a skill and be an apprentice.
Basically, well, it's not quite like that,
but maybe they're coming back to
it because college is too expensive.
Even though going to school there is free,
fine room and board,
you have to pay for that could put you
into debt that you don't want to incur.
So yes, there is free education,
but you still have to pay back.
So, fortunately,
I wanted to be a nurse and
so I did go the academic route, which was very nice.
It was fortunate enough for me,
barely making it sometimes,
I was not very good at reading.
So but I'm catching up. I do.
>> So what age did you have to make that decision?
>> That was at 10 and 11.
>> Years of age?
>> Of age yeah. And that's when
they formed you back then.
And my cousin was just four months old,
but she was in a grade higher than mine.
And she never got to be a nurse,
but she would have been an excellent nurse.
But had she waited long enough
and gotten in my grade level,
she would probably have made it.
So it was a lot about immaturity.
So sometimes it's a harsh punishment
in a way, the way it is.
But if you're very talented, you're very eager,
like I have a girlfriend and
she did not go the academic way.
She went the practical way.
But after finishing the tenth grade,
she could get an additional education of three years
like junior college that
made her being accepted to nursing school.
>> So what qualities in you made you want to be a nurse?
>> Well, my mother had
a stroke when she was 34 years old.
So I saw how mean the nurses were to her and I said,
I'm going to be a nurse,
and I'm not going to be that mean.
She had epidurals and they made
her lie on her stomach for three days,
and that's probably not very good.
No. Very sad.
But she became ambulatory
and she didn't know she had a stroke.
They thought she had MS because 34,
no, you couldn't have a stroke, could you?
No way. But she was a smoker.
See, the war made everybody
smoking because there was all these cigarettes.
And that's very bad for your gums.
And so she had had
an experimental gum removal, so the tissue.
But I bet you they didn't give her antibiotics and
I'm still sure that it was
just a little germ that went straight.
But life is strange, isn't it?
>> So what was the recovery process?
>> It was lots of physical therapy,
but she managed to get back home.
Like I said, my grandmother took
over and took care of us.
>> Came into your home.
>> [OVERLAPPING] Home and stayed with us,
made sure we went to school fed and cleaned and all that.
So that was sad in itself.
But my mother regained, she was determined.
And so she walked again and she could do almost anything.
It was just a little hard the left hand was a little
, she would cheat.
She couldn't have anything in her hand
and the doorbell rang she would let go of it.
But she trained the brain cognitive behavior,
isn't it just amazing?
So she bicycled again and so that was very good.
It really was. She did fine. She did.
>> When did you finish school?
>> In 1969, I graduated from high school,
which over there is called
[FOREIGN] exam, the real exam.
And I did pretty good.
So right after that, well,
I had dated a young man at
that point and both his parents were handicapped.
And he hated nurses and he didn't want me to be a nurse.
So I was looking into teaching,
physical therapy but crafty ergonomic therapy, maybe.
But he found somebody else.
So well, I became a young girl,
left [inaudible] Geneva Switzerland.
So I left and
studied French and German and a little bit of everything.
And when I got back,
I decided, well, I'm going to try nursing school.
But before that, I went to like it's called High School.
Conv was one of the Danish big thinkers.
He was a minister. He was a poet.
He was he was the Renaissance man in 1850s,
but there was this school named after him.
And it taught you a lot of skills.
So I went there and actually,
I got a little degree in exercise education.
But right then,
a nursing school called and said, Yeah, come on.
So that was lucky for me.
My lucky break right there.
>> So how long were you in Geneva?
>> Well, I was in Geneva six month.
But then I went up to
Paris because I wanted to learn
more French now that I was there.
So I worked for a French family there for six months.
So I was gone a year.
>> Did you enjoy that?
>> Oh, it was fun. Yeah. Can you
imagine bicycling down [FOREIGN]?
I did that every day to go to school.
I lived in the fancy 16th [FOREIGN] and I went to
school in on [FOREIGN].
But I saved a lot of money by bicycling
because I didn't have to pay for
the subway on the metro there.
So I saved up money so I could go and
buy a Dior scarf in the Dior store.
Strange how certain things work.
But yes, I was very proud of that scarf.
Unfortunately, I left it in a taxi.
It slit off. I never saw it.
That was years later. But that's life.
Hope somebody got it. I got to enjoy it.
>> Now, somebody else does it.
>> Hopefully, I hope somewhere out there.
And so you said it was
a family in a nice section of Paris.
>> Oh, yes, indeed.
>> And you care for how many children?
>> Three children there and two in Geneva.
>> Did they have good or bad behavior?
>> Well, there were three adopted children.
And you could tell they had been separated from
a nurturing soul for a little too young there was one,
the youngest little boy had a little bit of trouble,
but we managed between the mother and I.
And the oldest had some problems too.
Isabella, she did pretty good,
but she was a girl. Girls are tough.
>> And then you returned to Denmark for nursing school?
>> Yes.
>> And how long was nursing school?
>> Almost four years. But back then,
you paid for your books and you studied for six months.
Then they used you in the hospitals.
You were part of the workforce.
So you were given a stipend.
But enough to survive.
And you had a one room all in college dorms.
So we managed.
So I finished with no owing the banks any money,
which was a good feeling.
So being on your own.
>> And where did you go after nursing school?
>> Well, I stayed in Copenhagen
and I first did intensive care,
and then I did surgical.
But I think I'm more of a medical,
practical, caring nurse.
I did had a good run as the nurse,
we oversaw 150 people on two floors.
So you incorporated your helpers and other patients.
And now that I think back,
was an excellent idea.
There were basically 10 beds,
but there were always too many people coming in.
So there were two extra beds right by my desk.
But the healthier patients would go and
help feed the ones that couldn't feed themselves.
It was like an elms house in a way because it was in
downtown Copenhagen and we would
have all walks of life from street people to
the king came and died there. Pneumonia.
>> Were you there?
>> 1972. Yeah.
>> Do you remember?
>> Yeah. I do remember.
>> Did you treat him?
>> No, he was not in my section.
He didn't have the other section.
>> You got [inaudible]
>> Well, we were still in nursing school,
so we were like a.
>> Is this the current monarch's father?
>> Yeah. Correct. And she has been there since 1972,
and it's 2015 and she is 75 years old.
She turned 75 on the 16th April.
>> So when were you in London?
>> Well, that was during my nursing school years.
If you wrote an essay
about an experience in a different hospital,
you would be paid the voyage to the destination.
So it was like a free vacation.
So for four weeks,
I went to Children's Hospital in Gray Ormond Street in
London and met a wonderful American physical therapist.
>> What was his name?
>> Randy, but it was a she.
>> What was her name?
>> Her name?
>> I [inaudible].
>> That's right. It's okay.
She was brilliant.
And her dad had also died of a heart attack and by then,
my dad had died of a heart attack.
Her dad was a heart surgeon with
officers on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Dr. Faber.
So Randy married Dr.
Buckingham at the hospital and they moved to America.
Yeah, it's good to have connections, isn't it?
But she taught me a very good lesson.
We had children coming in for surgeries.
They had been born with misshaped limbs,
and they would for example,
they wouldn't they had flippers instead of hands,
but the bones were still there.
And back then in 1974,
it was pretty experimental,
but they managed to make
real hands out of these children's limbs.
And so this young boy had to learn to use his new hand.
So we all and that was her idea,
wrapped up our good hand.
And that afternoon, we were going to try and make
pancakes with our bad hand and him with his new hand.
You can imagine what messy kitchen that was.
>> Just helping him to learn.
>> Helping him to learn, so we were all equal here.
>> Well, tell me about meeting your husband.
>> Well, that was after I graduated from nursing school.
I had a wonderful little apartment
in the nursing complex in Copenhagen,
close to parks, you could run, you could walk,
you could go to the beach, you could go to the lake.
And it was the 100th year of the CTC,
the cycling Touring Club of England.
And it was in Harrogate up in Yorkshire.
And that's where I met my first husband.
And he convinced me that America would be okay.
Nursing would be portable. I thought.
Well, actually, I came to visit in 1978 in Atlanta.
So it was very nice.
One day it was nice, sunny,
and then suddenly it was very cold.
I was surprised. I thought
I was going to be in the subtropics.
>> And what was your
first impression of the United States?
Based on what you had known before.
>> Well, we grew up watching Dallas.
We think everybody is rich and thin.
And then you come to America and you're going.
Oh. Okay.
That was a little different. Well,
dynasty was renamed Dallas,
because Dallas and Dallas, that was catching.
Well, my first impression was like snow white.
I flew eastern from New York to Atlanta.
And I thought they had polished each apple,
and I've never seen a red delicious apple before.
And being given
a really delicious apple was just amazing.
So just growing up in the '50s,
you could get apples from the trees in the backyard,
but they had blemishes and so forth.
So anything that pristine that was, wow, amazing.
And oranges, that was just a Christmas.
You wouldn't get it any other time.
So that was a big deal.
Remember in the '50s, even in Denmark,
they still had ration cards,
sugar, butter, all that stuff.
Well, we don't need that anyway,
but it was still like that.
And coffee also.
And one Danish company made chicory coffee
or you poor the chicory in a little half pound,
and you mixed it in with real coffee to stretch it.
So it was pretty good.
Not bad. Grow up liking it.
>> So you settled in the United States.
>> So I settled here, yeah.
>> And did you continue to work as a nurse?
>> I did for a while at Pitman Hospital.
And then of course, I had Eric,
and it was a little hard being
a nurse and caring for a baby.
If you want to do it the real way
close nursing and being there yourself.
So I learned to be a pre-school teacher, which was fun.
And helped start a little preschool in,
it's right by Dud Hills and [FOREIGN].
So that was nice.
So I basically came across town to teach there.
But I met wonderful people that I'm still in touch with.
So sometimes they say there's
a reason why you do what you do and what you don't do.
And well, 16 years later after my marriage,
I was married to my first husband in the church where I
was baptized and confirmed and married in.
And he found somebody else and he moved to Seattle.
So but low and behold,
I thought I was going to go home,
but I met my second husband.
He was also a bicyclist.
So there we go. I bicycle
commuted all these years to work,
and even to Dud Hills,
there are some hilly streets over there.
>> And you had another son.
>> And then I had another son. And that's Chris.
You've met him for the Summer Institute.
Oh, he enjoyed it. You still says,
oh, yeah, I remember.
>> So you started
volunteering for the Museum of History and
Holocaust Education at Kansas State
in 2005, thereabouts?
>> Whenever the exhibit just opened.
And I thought, oh,
it's important for my youngest to come up and see this.
Well, maybe it was before '05,
because he was not in school,
so it must have been in '01, '02.
Something like that, maybe.
>> I think the main exhibit came about 2003.
>> Then it was 2003,
if that's when it started.
>> And you then started to volunteer?
>> Yes. And thanks to Esther Magel.
Well, we went through the whole exhibit.
And it was very interesting, especially to me.
So I wrote something in the little book,
and Esther came over,
and she says Sternly,
"Now you come out here.
You volunteer, okay."
"Yes, ma'am." But that has
really been very liberating in a way,
because I'm not an academic,
but I'm surrounded by all these academics.
So I've learned so much.
I pick a little here and pick a little there.
>> And you tell the story of your father?
>> Yes.
>> So before we talk about his experience during the war,
I want to find out about what you're wearing.
>> So basically a custom.
This is from 1856,
my great grandmother's bonnet.
And you would wear it for your confirmation.
When she was confirmed, she was giving it.
And when you were at gatherings.
And it's been passed down in the family.
Well, I'll take it as
you can tell it's getting very free and very old.
And this is basically just each part of
the country has a special line of outfits,
and you would usually wear a white shirt for Sunday,
and you would take the apron off,
but during the week you would put your apron back on,
but you could interchange all these smocks.
But this is just to pretend.
>> Do you get a chance to wear
it any other time than this?
>> When we have the Scandinavian festival
and I'm making my round bonnets,
I do with my knitting needle.
>> And what is the Scandinavian festival?
>> Well, in 1995,
it was started in honor
of Sam Linden and Barbaro's son who was killed.
He was newly wed. He was changing attire
on '85 and was killed.
So they had a little money,
and started a scholarship fund,
and so they wanted a festival to give this money to
an American student as scholarship to get books.
And it started out wonderful.
We had exchanges of cultural events from Denmark,
Norway, Sweden,
and Finland, even from Estonia came.
So that was pretty nice
because that was part of the Baltic State.
>> Are they Scandinavian?
>> Not really, but they have a lot
of architectural wise and [OVERLAPPING].
>> They are not involved Baltic festival, though.
>> Not really, so that's why they come.
>> So when you were young and growing up in Copenhagen,
what did you know about
the history of the Second World War
and the Nazi occupation?
Like how open were
your parents and other adults about it?
>> Oh, my dad never talked about it.
And he would get very emotional if, like,
we went to Anne Frank's house in 1964,
and he came out and he couldn't speak for a long time.
So that was hard.
So the story is basically was told
by my grandfather and grandmother.
So I remember the feeling still,
if you heard any body walking behind
you in boots that sounded like the black Gestapo boots,
you would tighten up.
You could tell people just instinctively,
would you freeze for a second,
and just it would transport them back to bad memories.
Because Denmark was occupied for five years.
They call them the five ugly years.
And they did not want people to forget those either.
But lots of hardship,
lots of loss of friends and family.
And it was not an easy time to grow up.
But the fellowship that
formed probably lasted the lifetime.
>> Well, let's talk about your father's
background for a moment.
He was born in Copenhagen?
>> Yes, also.
>> And can you describe his childhood.
The household that he grew up in?
>> He had an older sister,
and since my grandmother
worked in the shop, they had a maid.
So they were doing pretty well,
you know, for a while there.
And my father went to school and then excelled,
and he was very musical too,
so he learned to play the guitar and later
joined a jazz band.
And his sister also,
she was actually the one who
connected my mother and father,
because she was also athletic,
and was out there.
It was a huge beautiful area where you
could play soccer or do any high jumps and fields,
track and fields and so forth,
and my dad did compete and won.
And he was also a good swimmer.
They all were good swimmers. My mother too.
And my dad in 1947,
won the Copenhagen championship
in butterfly. So that was pretty good.
>> He was also a boy scout?
>> He was also a boy scout.
Absolutely. In 1938, met Baden-Paul.
Lord Baden-Paul came to Copenhagen,
and shook every boy's hand.
>> Who was Baden-Paul?
>> Oh, Baden-Paul. He was the founder of the Boy Scout,
South America. That's right.
I should mention that. So Juliette Gordon Low,
Connection. Savannah, London.
>> What's your impression of your father?
What kid do you think he was?
Well, back then, they did a lot of practical jokes.
They didn't have YouTube.
They didn't have television.
They would go to the movies.
But he I think would tell stories about
how when new boys joined the boy scouts,
they would make them grease the spikes for
the for the tent plug with grease.
So it would be easier to hammer into the ground.
We take a stick with a cloth and
run around the fire so the smoke would turn.
I mean, that's just little things.
I guess, this is the American word,
and you probably have to edit this,
but they would go
out in the field and you would see cows,
but that would be a dried cow cake
or sometimes not so dry,
but they would take their big boy scout hat and put it
down and they would say to one of
the young boys, "Come on.
There's a chicken in here."
But they called it cup cooting,
but I can now see where that came from.[LAUGHTER]
So yes. So that kind of practical joking.
I think they did a lot of that.
>> Well, can you provide a little background on
the politics in Denmark in the 1930s?
>> Yes. It was It was conservative,
but it was social aspects,
everybody who were cared for, basically,
you wouldn't have to sleep outside unless you chose to.
And Stauning was the minister during the occupation.
And he was a social Democrat,
but they had a big coalition of the conservatives.
So it evened out.
They had to speak to each other.
And some of them
really wanted to help the Germans because they
wanted to keep them at bay.
If we could please them enough to get along and slide by.
Somewhat today would be pretty bad when you look at it.
But not knowing the outcome
of what the conflicts were going to be.
General Best was stationed in Copenhagen and he
knew about the 1942 final solution.
And he was leaking that out surreptitiously.
And so it was known and there were
lots of negotiations and
you can't do that to the Danish Jews.
It's just not, he was my people and about the king.
He did not leave. He didn't flee to London. He stayed.
He said, "No." But I think it's alleging
that he rode with
the yellow star every morning
on his horseback through town.
But but he did probably once.
[LAUGHTER]
>> And so what was the significance of
the monarchy in Denmark at that time?
>> Stability. The crown princess was just born,
the 16th of April and the 9th of April was the invasion.
So that was the light and
everybody congregated around that,
saying, "Okay, there is hope.
There's new life. There's new life."
And the queen?
Well, she was from Germany.
I mean, yes.
So there you go.
Close connections.
>> So tell me about the significance also
of that date April 9th, 1940.
Is that a date that is still recorded?
>> Very much. My parents both
individually remembers waking up,
getting ready to go to school and hearing
all the noise of the low flying airplanes,
and then all the leaflets being
dropped all over to surrender,
that Denmark was now occupied by the Nazis.
>> And that's what it said on the leaflet?
>> Yeah. Basically. If you had a birthday that day,
you would forget it was your birthday.
There were skirmishes at the border,
but it was over in two hours, I think.
>> So minimal fighting.
>> Very minimal. So they surrendered right there.
>> The sort of public resistance was more just symbolic?
>> It was symbolic, yeah.
>> And that's how these legends
might have grown around the king.
>> It was basically the disobedience of the Nazis.
So yes, a lot of it is anecdotal,
but the king was a strong man with his will power.
He could influence people. And he did.
And that probably made it more
uncomfortable for the Nazis to be in Copenhagen.
But it was not easy.
>> So were some elements of
the resistance movement already in
place before the occupation?
>> No. That happened after the invasion.
Because my aunt and uncle visited Berlin in
1939 and everything on the surface looked fine, calm.
That was before September 1st,
invasion of Poland, of course.
But they thought crazy ideas would stay in Germany,
maybe just south of the border.
And all those treaties and
that they had promised not to invade.
Well, here they are.
Well, we are protecting you against the communists,
that's why we're here.
>> But I mean, sharing a border.
>> Yeah.
>> That's a different thing.
>> It is a different thing. And during
the many years of that close borders,
the borders shifted back and forth and back and forth.
In 1848 Denmark won, Schleswig and Holstein.
So they regained old Denmark all the way
down to the River Elbe.
And then in 1864, Denmark lost.
So the borders went all the way up,
past where it had been before.
So in 1918 when the surrender of Germany,
half of that was given back to Denmark.
So no Schleswig-Holstein was cut.
Danes were still living in Schleswig
and supported by the Danish government
and still to this day.
So it's fluctuant back in the '60s and '70s,
people living by the border could
get better reception on that television set.
So they watched German television. [LAUGHTER]
>> So tell me
about the development of the resistance
and how your father became involved?
>> Well, I don't know totally many details,
but being a boy scout in
Copenhagen where all that information was brewing.
Probably got them involved fairly
early on because one of their leaders
was very influenced and
could get British BBC radios information and so forth,
and they were able actually to print the news.
And my dad was young, fast runner.
He would run all the way up to
the seven story tall buildings,
and then they would just throw out the leaflets.
So people on the street would gather up the news as fast
as they could before the Gestapo would grab them and say,
"Hey, you can't have that."
So they got uncensored news,
which was a relief to a lot of people because,
as we know, everything was censored
and the six times you hear a lie,
you stop believing it.
So that was probably unfortunate.
And I think that my grandparents,
they knew what my dad was doing.
They just pretended not knowing.
The less they knew, the better,
but of course they knew.
>> So are you saying they were quietly supportive?
>> Of course they were. Absolutely. My dad would be
punished loudly just by having
my grandfather clap his hand in the hall so
everybody could hear that he was being punished because
they were all listening behind closed doors,
because now that bad boy,
he was out again after curfew.
What is he doing after dark?
>> So the curfew was one element of
how people were being monitored
and the behavior was being controlled?
>> Right. That was one.
And the other one was the snitches.
You would know whether
somebody would write you up or not.
And so you would have to be on your best behavior.
And little by little,
in Copenhagen, the resistance found a way to communicate.
You could wear a red bandana or
your baby could wear a red bonnet in the baby carriage,
and people say oh.
And they would suddenly associate and say, great.
So little by little
but it wasn't always easy to get the real news.
>> Did he know anyone personally close to
him who was a snitch?
>> Yeah. I'm sure he liquidated some. I'm not sure.
That's probably why he wouldn't talk.
Or he was in with them.
Because I remember later in the '50s and '60s,
we had a nice summer house,
and my dad said,
yeah, they executed a snitch right over there.
And afterwards, I just said, okay.
Yeah. And the inn burned.
But I didn't think of it,
but now later on, well,
maybe if he knew that much,
and where it was, maybe he knew more.
>> So you're saying that he
and his fellow resistance fighters executed a snitch?
>> Yeah, they probably did many.
Actually, I remember that he told us,
he didn't have any weapons on him,
but he was on the street car and he recognized a snitch.
And he had his pipe.
And he took the pipe up against his sleeve underneath,
and went over to the guy, and nobody noticed,
but the guy thinks it's the end of a nozzle.
And my dad said, walk on with me.
So they got off and they
went to where the other resistance fighters were,
and maybe that was the one.
I don't know how many. But that was one way.
So the resistance grew more and
more because suddenly everybody were
affected and were not happy with circumstances.
Why should they have to give up all the goods
for the German Nazi war machine?
And like we know here,
like Anne Frank's family,
they were well to do and suddenly here
they are in hiding,
starved for social connections.
>> Well, he was still young in this [OVERLAPPING].
>> Yeah, he was very young.
>> So was he continuing to
attend school and do red herring?
>> Yeah. He would be back in school.
They would do it after school and at night.
And of course, being so young.
That's why you heard me tell
the story how they would listen in to
the radio and get
the news and there would be the codeword,
red herring or whatever it was.
And they knew that at [FOREIGN],
there would be a drop of ammunitions and guns.
So they bicycled out, waited,
and hear the Royal Air Force,
the Bridge planes would come in.
And they would morse code up red herring.
And the pilot would see the code word, here it is.
Turn around, drop the goods,
and they would clean the field in the night
and very early morning.
And then one morning,
my dad is on his way home and he has a little trailer on
his bicycle with the 17 rifles
and ammunitions and whatnot and cigarettes.
Illegal cigarettes. You couldn't smoke those out
in the free. Where did he get those?
So he sees the Gestapo up on the bridge.
And he thought, well, if I turn around,
they know I have something to hide.
I'm dead anyways. So he went
up and they asked, what you have there?
Weapons. And they started laughing.
Just pass in. So I
tell the young kids when they visit at the museum,
tell the truth, always tell
the truth, you might get away with it.
True. He went home that day
and hid all the rifles in a chair, taking them up.
And the ammunition was to blow up
the supply trains at night.
That's why he was out after curfew.
And the rifles were for the resistance when they were
fighting in an ambush of Gestapo or whatnot.
And so neighbors would
get money if they turned somebody in or suspicion.
A little money here and there couldn't hurt.
So one neighbor probably had suspicion.
And later on, I think my grandpa said,
yeah, they were Nazis.
So Gestapo came to the house and
inspected the house and they
had their rifles with the bayonet.
And they pierced every piece
of furniture, every painting,
every mattress,
to see if there was any weapons hidden anywhere.
And my grandmother later would say, my goodness.
I mean, feathers flying everywhere.
It was just the biggest mess.
Fortunately, our family was in the furniture business,
so it was repaired later on.
And I have a painting at my house here in Marietta,
of the forest where the Jews were
hiding before they were safely taken to Sweden,
with a bayonet hole in.
And there was nothing hidden there, which was fortunate.
My dad sat on the chair with the 17 rifles.
They never pierced that chair.
He stood up and thanked them for coming by,
and they left. That was pretty lucky.
>> What would the punishment have been?
>> Deportation. Arrest right there.
Definitely, an execution, maybe in the street,
to leave him to show the other resistance fighters,
see, this is what we do to you.
That's what they did.
But he continued. The final solution was getting closer.
Some of their Jewish friends needed to be in Sweden.
And they were also in this rowing club.
So when you're young
and the dopamine hasn't set in in the mid-brain,
to fool Gustavo at the pier would be fun.
So they were just out rowing,
and they just kept rowing to Sweden,
and they had their friend down in the rowboat.
>> So they were part of a larger boat.
Can you tell me a little bit about that?
>> Well, they actually managed to get to Sweden,
and they had gotten from
the underground assistance, and excuse.
Why they went in Sweden,
they had visited Aunt Anna,
and they were going back to school the next day.
So that was legit enough.
They went back home on the ferry.
And of another friend of
mine's family was up
on the coast and they were in the fishing business,
and they actually did have the Jews
hidden in the boats and covered up in cold herring.
It must have been just dreadful.
But you did what you had to do.
And the Jews were hiding in the attic of a church,
but there was a snitch,
and those people were arrested and they were part of
the 77 Danish Jews that were sent
to a concentration camp in Germany.
So they died,
out of 7,700 Jews in Denmark.
Which is very unfortunate.
But Jewish life in Denmark was very integrated unless you
were true Orthodox and you went to
the Jewish school and you went to the synagogue,
and had the Sabates and so forth.
Nobody would notice. Not really.
Later on, I think, "Yeah.
Well, she must have been Jewish.
Nel Selcher, he must have been Jewish too."
But I think I didn't really realize it that much until I
came to the US thinking back. Maybe we all.
>> But how is it organized in such a way that
over 7,000 people managed to get out?
>> Because of general best.
Leaking the final solution out to the Danish government.
And they were very active.
They had gotten everybody informed,
resistance fighters would go out and tell everybody,
that was what was happening.
And Jewish people either a month before had gone South
of Copenhagen and gotten on some horrible fishing story
where the boat ended
up back where it was because the fishermen
didn't know where he was and
it was such a long way to Sweden,
but they finally managed to get there,
but they had paid exuberant amount
of money to get to Sweden.
But it was it was difficult.
>> So did your father have other close calls?
>> The reason he went underground and disappeared
was basically after probably.
The one close was when they
were blowing up one of the supply trains,
and they were running away from the rail yard,
jumping over the fences.
He was shot in the back of a knee,
but couldn't go to the emergency room because he couldn't
walk in there with German bullets. Wouldn't look so good.
[LAUGHTER] That was a pretty close call.
And when he was buried,
he was buried with his bullet.
So my grandmother was able to cut it out.
>> Instead of going to the hospital,
he went to his parents house.
But was he on the run?
>> He ran. Adrenaline.
>> And he made it to your grandparents house where
your grandmother treated him? Then what happened?
>> Well, he knocked. That was good.
He was still good at running.
[LAUGHTER] That helps.
And he kept the resistance fighting.
They probably kept as many trains
they could blow up. They would.
>> And when did he go underground?
>> Probably in 1944.
That's my guess.
Because they must have
really known at that point that
he was a resistance fighter,
because his name must have been on a list.
And they came up
the front steps and my dad went up the kitchen steps,
all the way to the top of the attic,
got out the window,
and leaped over to
the other building and slid down the window there.
And he mingled in the crowd instead
of running away because then they would have known.
But when we talked to the students about bystanders,
here are thousands of bystanders, all curious now.
Who are they arresting today?
My dad went over and said,
"Who are they arresting today?"
So just to pretend that,
"It couldn't be me if I'm down here." [LAUGHTER]
>> And what did your grandparents say to the Gustavo?
>> They didn't know where he went and they didn't.
And my grandfather turned white
haired overnight because he didn't know.
And I'm surprised they didn't take my grandfather.
Really surprise.
>> So when you say to go underground.
>> He went to the underground resistance headquarters.
He got passport new ID, a new name.
>> It was more of changing identity?
>> Change of identity.
>> Where were the headquarters?
>> In Copenhagen, near the stadium.
They managed to get connections.
So my dad slid out of town and became a farm worker.
And that's what he did the last year of the war.
And the farmer didn't know anything.
It was just extra help.
>> Did he give up active fighting at that point?
>> I think so. But, I'm sure it was hard to
not be a little bit of [LAUGHTER] a spy.
>> You realize you talk about the lack of dopamine.
What else do you think motivated him?
>> Well, the unfairness of maybe being the underdog.
Because even though they were not told the truth,
I think some people did know about
what was going on in the concentration camps,
and because things were leaked out,
and what the future
would look like with the Nazis didn't look good.
So I think that was enough to resist,
not having freedom of speech and so forth.
>> Talk about bystanders.
There's so many people who we
bystanders or who went along with it
, or who collaborated.
So for your father not to do that, that's significant?
>> I guess so. So maybe
he was a little more brave than others.
And maybe who knows?
They might all have been Jewish when
their grandfather came to town.
Maybe.
But I think,
his cousin was in the resistance too.
It was part of what the family did. They stood together.
>> So when the work came to an end,
was your father or other resistance fighters,
were they recognized for what they had done?
>> Not really. I don't think so. They just wanted to.
[LAUGHTER] Just have a normal life
and they were told to forget everything.
>> By whom?
>> By the government, basically.
>> Why do you think they were told to quit.
>> They thought that that was the best healing.
And what they did right after the war,
my dad actually was part of Red Cross relief effort,
and they went to Germany and helped clean up the streets
and do the civil services down there.
So because it was really bad.
Humbog especially.
There was nothing left. So they went and helped there.
And then back in Denmark,
you had to have a year of service in the military.
So right after that, he was in the service.
There you go. You never can tell
what brings one way or the other.
>> So when did your father pass away?
>> In 1970. I was fairly young, 45 years old.
I know that's young.
>> Was it sudden?
>> Instant heart attack.
But he'd had stomach ulcers,
and I think they were
operating maybe a little too much on him.
But, stress, probably.
Who knows? He didn't drink.
Maybe if he'd been drinking,
it would have expanded the arteries.2
>> So you talk about the silence that followed the war?
>> Very much.
>> But you're sharing your father's story today,
so why is that important to you?
>> To honor him. He never got to.
He honored the top of
his group in the resistance fighting
was named Kim Meld Brun.
So of course, my brother was named Kim.
So that's how he honored him.
So because Kim Meld Brun was shot by
the Nazis in April 1945 out on the waters.
He was fleeing to Sweden, but they got him.
>> And your father was close to him?
>> Yeah. So there we go. You never can tell.
>> Thank you so much
for sharing your story and your father's story,
and we'll end there.