Kulturarv
(Cultural Heritage)
This story is about my Great Grandmother Ellen Wilhelmine Nielsen. She is my Mom’s Dad’s Mom. The family lived in Dragør, which is a small town south of Copenhagen. Dragør was primarily a fishing village, so most of her family were in that business in some way or another. Ellen was 55 when her husband became ill and died in 1941. Even though her 6 children were growing into adults, some of them still lived with her including my grandfather, grandmother and my mom and her siblings. Ellen worked as a fish monger (fish seller) on the Gammel Strand (the old beach) as many of the other women did at that time.
Along the same beach there were two brothers who sold flowers. One day in October 1943 they approached Ellen and asked if they could pay her to help them get to Sweden via one of the fishing boats. They told her they were Jewish and were being persecuted by the Germans. She took the brothers home with her and gave them a place to stay until she could arrange their escape. From that day forward she became heavily involved in the opposition. She was an information courier, transported weapons and hid jews in her home and helped smuggle them out on fishing boats. One evening in July 1944, Ellen and her family went out to a birthday party. My grandmother’s younger sister came to babysit my Mom and her siblings. Ellen got tired, so she left the party early and went home to bed. Shortly afterwards there was shouting and loud knocking at the door. The Gestapo were standing there demanding she come with them. She was allowed to change out of her nightgown while a soldier stood watch. She was taken to a local house called Villa Pax that had been taken over by the Nazis and used as a holding jail. The following morning, she, her brother and 6 other locals were taken to a holding jail in Copenhagen. They were stripped of their belongings, put into prison clothes, and interrogated nonstop. About a week later they were sent to Vestre Prison Camp where the men and women were separated. Every morning, they stood in line for roll call and given one small cup of a nasty tasting soup. It didn’t take long before they were as sick as the prisoners who were already there. During the day they endured endless hours of beatings and interrogations. And every day the camp grew overcrowded with more prisoners and so the food rations became smaller and smaller. Three months later in late October, an officer told them that some of the prisoners had been chosen to go to another location in Germany. They were told they were going to help build a bigger and better Germany and they should consider it an honor to be chosen. And Ellen was one of the chosen. They traveled by train for a day and a half until they arrived at a clearing where they had to get out and walk the rest of the way. They headed towards a forest where they heard shouting and barking dogs. They came upon several soldiers standing over two dead bodies who were prisoners who had tried to escape. The officers told them to stop and look at the bodies and remember what would happen to them if they tried to escape. They finally reached The Frøslev Concentration Camp. The bunks were made of lumber with dried grass for a mattress and the grass was crawling with bugs. They were told to stand in line for roll call and their daily meal ration. As it turned out, the soup (stale water with a few pieces of cabbage) along with moldy bread was even worse than the last place. Ellen had a hard life growing up but was very strong and stubborn. Every night before sleeping, she would pray. When she was cold, she would think of her cozy little house and when she was hungry, she would visualize the nice meals she shared with her family. It was the only thing that kept her going. In December 1944 she was sent on to another place called Ravensbruck Women’s Concentration Camp. At the far side of the encampment was a large enclosure containing brick buildings. Ellen and several of the healthier prisoners were taken over to those buildings to work. The buildings were walk in gas chambers. The prisoners were there to load the corpses on wagons and remove clothing and gold filings before taking them to a mass grave in the forest. In February 1945 she was sent on to Jugendlejeren Concentration Camp that she called the inferno of hell. The prisoners were told they were going on a recreation outing but in fact it was to the gas chamber. But shortly after arriving she was suddenly moved yet again to another prison. There she continued to observe weak adults and children being sent into the gas chamber. She was twice selected for the gas chamber but pulled back because she was deemed healthy enough to work. On Good Friday 1945 it was determined that approximately 1,000 women would be sent to the gas chamber that weekend. Her date was scheduled for Easter Sunday, April 1st. When the day arrived, she stood in line with the other women while the Nazi guards watched over them. As she was waiting her turn, one of the guards heard her speaking and asked if she was Danish. She replied yes. The guard told her that when he was a boy, he vacationed in Denmark many times with his family and that the Danish people always treated them very kindly. He pulled her out of the line and sent her back to the barracks. Around this time, Germany was starting to lose the war. Less than a week later, on Saturday, April 7th, word came that all Scandinavian prisoners were to be evacuated. Swedish soldiers were sent in to tend to the prisoners as best they could. On April 8th, The Red Cross arrived in white vans carrying doctors, nurses and medical supplies and transported them to Sweden, France, and Holland. Among the soldiers that arrived to help was a young Jewish captain from New York. As he walked among the rescued prisoners, he heard someone call out his name. Ellen had recognized him from a photo her daughter had sent her when she announced she was getting married. He was her son in law. It was morning and my grandfather was still in his pajamas eating breakfast with his family. An Army private knocked on the door saying he had a message from his captain. I’ve located your mother, stop. Will be arriving in Sweden on Monday am stop, she is alive stop, signed your brother in law. Over the next few days, the Red Cross issued lists of people that were arriving home, and each family was asked to appoint one person to be in attendance to greet their loved one. My grandfather was selected, and the local fisherman sailed him to Sweden. In the meantime, Ellen’s son in law was granted a week’s leave to personally care for his mother in law. While in the hospital she received notice that her brother had been found alive and would be joining her shortly. Ellen spent 1 ½ months in a Swedish hospital and was then transferred to a Danish hospital where she spent several more months recuperating. She finally came home to Dragør in the late summer of 1945. She managed to cope with the concentration camp syndrome, testified many times to the War Crimes Committee and gave many interviews. She lived another 22 years until the age of 79. Two Footnotes: The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York has created a new exhibit called “Courage to Act: Rescue in Denmark”. It opened October 15th and Ellen is featured in the exhibit. It’s designed to teach young visitors ages 9-12 the rescue of Denmark’s Jewish Community. And if you go to the museum’s website, there is an 8 ½ minute video highlighting the exhibit. There is a Danish producer named Niels Juul who has his own production company called NoFatEgo. His resume is quite impressive including executive producer of the new movie “Killers of the Flower Moon” directed by Martin Scorsese. He has a strong passion for independent films and documentaries. His company is making a movie about Ellen’s story. The script is finished and was based on research done by a Danish historian and written by a man who is an expert on WW2 and Nazi Germany. They’ve hired a director and are currently casting. The last thing he wrote to us was he would start filming early this year. There is a link to the film on his website at: https://www.nofatego.com/indevelopment. Presented by Andrea Thomsen, Ellen Lodge #21, February 2024
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