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As a little girl, whenever our family held family arrangements, I would sit at my grandparent’s grand old oak table and listen to the unbelievable and stunning stories they told of times long past. While all the other children played in the garden, I would gaze at all my elders with blue eyes, just listening intently. Though I have many stories to tell, I will now tell you a story my grandfather told together with his sister about a German soldier.

It was shortly before German Nazi soldiers pulled the Denmark into the war. Niels Axel Schou Jørgensen lived a quite life with his wife Ebba, and his four children, Winnie, Henning, Anny and Ninna in a rather large house. They didn’t have a lot of money, so they rented one of the rooms out to a German soldier. As the war started, the German soldier said to my great-grandfather. “When the war comes to Denmark, and it will. I will make sure you are protected. I promise.” Promises made, promises kept, when the war came to Denmark, the family wasn’t harmed, or threatened in any way.

One day, the four children were playing outside in the garden, when they noticed an odd stench, coming from the house. They fetched their father, and when he opened the door to the kitchen, discovered the German sitting on the floor, with the gas cooker turned on, and the windows closed, saying he was going to kill himself. They threw him out. Shortly after they moved to another part of Denmark.

Later they heard he was dead.

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