Exodus - Leon Uris [42]
Later that month the Germans made a sweep of Denmark to catch the Jews. There were none to be caught.
Although Karen remained unharmed in Copenhagen with the Hansens the responsibility of the decision weighed heavily on Meta. From that second on the German occupation became a prolonged nightmare. A dozen new rumors would send her into a panic. Three or four times she fled from Copenhagen with Karen to relatives on Jutland.
Aage became more and more active in the underground. He was gone three or four nights a week now. These nights were long and horrible for Meta.
The Danish underground, now directed and co-ordinated, turned its energies against German transportation. Every half hour a rail line was bombed. Soon the entire rail network of the country was littered with the wreckage of blasted trains.
The HIPOS took their revenge by blowing up the beloved Tivoli Gardens.
The Danes called a general strike against the Germans. They poured into the streets and set up barricades all over Copenagen flying Danish, American, British, and Russian flags.
The Germans declared Copenhagen in a state of siege!
From German headquarters at the Hotel D’Angleterre, Dr. Werner Best shrieked in fury, “The rabble of Copenhagen shall taste the whip!”
The general strike was beaten down, but the underground kept up its acts of destruction.
SEPTEMBER 19, 1944
The Germans interned the entire Danish police force for failing to control the people and for overt sympathy with their actions against the occupation forces. The underground, in a daring raid, destroyed the Nazi record offices.
The underground manufactured small arms and smuggled fighters into Sweden to join Danish Free Forces. It turned its wrath on the HIPOS, dispensing quick justice to some of its members and to Danish traitors.
The HIPOS and the Gestapo went berserk in an aimless wave of reprisal murders.
Then German refugees began pouring over the border into Denmark. These were people bombed out by the Allies. They swarmed all over the country, taking food and shelter without asking; stealing and preying on the Danes. The Danes turned their backs on these refugees with utter contempt.
In April 1945 there were all sorts of rumors.
MAY 4, 1945
“Mommy! Daddy! The war is over! The war is over!”
Chapter Thirteen
THE VICTORS ENTERED DENMARK—the Yanks and the British and the Danish Free Forces. It was a great week—a week of retribution to the HIPOS and the Danish traitors, to Dr. Werner Best and the Gestapo. A week of din and delirious joy, climaxed by the appearance of creaking old King Christian to reopen the Danish Parliament. He spoke in a proud but tired voice which broke with emotion.
For Meta and Aage Hansen the week of the liberation was a time of sorrow. Seven years before they had rescued a child from grave danger and they had raised her into a blossoming young woman. What a lovely girl she was! Karen was grace and beauty and laughter. Her voice was pure and sweet and she danced with magic wings on her feet. Now: the Day of Judgment.
Once in a fit of anguish Meta Hansen had sworn she would never give Karen up. Now Meta Hansen was becoming a victim of her own decency. There were no Germans left to fight now, only her own Christian goodness. And Aage would fall victim, as he had to, to his Danish sense of honor. Liberation brought upon them a fear of the haunted nights and the life of emptiness that lay ahead of them without Karen. The Hansens had aged badly during the last seven years. It was apparent the moment they were allowed to relax from the tension of war. No matter how trying things had been there had always been room for laughter, but now while Denmark laughed there was no laughter for them. The Hansens wanted only to look at Karen, hear her voice, spend the hours in her room in a desperate attempt to gather for themselves a lifetime of memories.
Karen knew it was coming. She loved the Hansens. Aage had always done what was right. She had to wait for him to speak first. For two weeks