A WEARY CATHERINE enters her office in the early afternoon to find Britta Stein sitting alone in the conference room. “I’m sorry to be late for our meeting,” Catherine says. “No sooner did I finish with Mr. Sparks this morning, than I had to cover an emergency hearing in another case. I tried to call you, but your line was busy.”
“I took the phone off the hook,” Britta replies. “I had a few unruly callers.”
Catherine is at once concerned. “Have you been getting threatening phone calls?”
“Not exactly threatening. I would more accurately characterize them as disturbing. There is no shortage of filthy-mouthed people in our city.”
“My goodness, Britta. Have you called the police?”
She shakes her head. “What can the police do? It was just a handful of meanspirited people swearing at me—no doubt part of Hendricksen’s tavern crowd. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. They’re crank calls.”
“I don’t like it, Britta. You never know. Some people may be crazy enough to act out. The police might be able to trace those calls. What do they say?”
“Oh, if you’ll excuse my French, I’m the Jew-bitch from hell. How dare I dishonor such a wonderful war hero? It’s too bad the Nazis didn’t gas me when they had the chance. The restaurant wall should be painted with my blood. That sort of thing.”
“Those are not crank calls; those are threats. We need to report them. I’ll have Liam get on it.”
“It doesn’t matter, I’m not answering my house phone anymore. I’m only using my cell phone.”
“Nevertheless, I’m going to talk to Liam about increasing security at your residence.”
“I live in a secure building on Marine Drive. There are thirty-seven floors and a full-time doorman at the front entrance. I’m perfectly safe.”
“The world is full of crazies, and one of them may seek to do something other than scare you with a phone call. Did you come down here today on your own, or did Emma bring you?”
“She dropped me off, but I’m very capable of traveling on my own, thank you very much. I know how to take a taxi. I do very well. I’ve been getting around quite nicely for ninety-two years. You needn’t worry about me. I was the one who was on time this afternoon.”
“Point taken. But be careful. I’m still going to have Liam report it.” Catherine takes out her yellow notepad and picks up a pen. “Let’s get started. I’d like to begin by getting a general understanding of your life in Denmark before the war. Tell me, what was it like growing up Britta Stein?”
“Well, back then I was Britta Morgenstern and life was pleasant. Copenhagen was a delightful place to grow up. It was peaceful, liberal and tolerant. The financial center, where my father worked, was vibrant, centrally located and an easy trip for him to ride his bicycle to and from work. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of Danish businessmen riding their bicycles in their suits and sport jackets. They still do.” She smiles at her memory. “There’s a Danish word for our general feeling of well-being; it’s called ‘hygge.’ It’s like taking a deep breath of fresh air on a sunny afternoon.
“My family lived in an apartment in the center of the city—the first floor of a three-story walkup. There was my mother, Nora, my father, Joseph, and my sister, Grethe, who was three years older than me and my best friend. When things unraveled, as they did in the forties, and when I was unable to process what was happening in the world around me, it was Grethe who kept me centered. She’d sit down and talk to me in terms that I could understand.”
“How did Grethe know what was going on?”
“Well, for most of those years she was at the university and a good student. She was very smart. Between the two of us, Grethe was the studious one; a voracious reader and a girl with boundless curiosity. She’d corner Papa and have long detailed discussions about what was happening. She relished the fact that Papa was so highly placed and well-informed. He was in the administration, you know. He worked for Denmark’s taxing authority and was an elected member of the Folketing—the Danish Parliament.”
Catherine jots a few notes. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about Denmark’s political structure. Doesn’t Denmark have a queen?”
Britta nods. “Queen Margrethe II. We are—I mean Denmark is—a constitutional monarchy. Not unlike the U.K., but with several political parties. Since no single political party ever achieves a majority, they must form coalitions in order to select a prime minister. The Danish constitution provides that the monarch is the titular head of state, and the queen or king has limited authority. Parliament makes the laws and the leading member of the majority party normally becomes the prime minister. My father worked in the Finance Ministry during the terms of Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning, a Social Democrat, and his successor, Erik Scavenius. King Christian X was the ruling monarch in the forties.”
“Your father sounds very important.”
“Well, he certainly was to Grethe and me. He was tall and strong and devoted to his daughters. And to my mother, of course. For Grethe, he was the fountain of knowledge, but for me, he was pure adventure. He loved to sail, and even when I was very little, whenever I saw him take out his sailing parka, I would run to him and beg him to take me along. I loved it.”
“Did Grethe love to sail as well?”
“Oh no. She hated the water. She got seasick. My mother wasn’t crazy about it either, even though Papa named his boat Queen Nora. Papa and I would pack a lunch and spend the afternoon on the body of water between Denmark and Sweden called Øresund. Those were the happiest days of my life.”
“Sounds lovely. Your family was Jewish; what was that like in prewar Denmark?”
“Well, I didn’t think being Jewish was anything unusual. We practiced our faith, but you wouldn’t say we were deeply religious. I think I would characterize us as assimilated. Jews were well integrated into Danish society. Denmark was not a particularly religious state anyway. Not like Poland or France or Spain. The prominent religion was Lutheran. Two hundred years ago, the Danish constitution established the Folkekirken, the Danish People’s Church. The majority of Danes identify themselves as Lutheran. There has been a Jewish presence in Denmark for four hundred years.” Britta shrugs her shoulders. “I never felt excluded from anything that I wanted to do because I was Jewish. It was never an issue at school. At the beginning of the war there were less than eight thousand of us in a country of almost four million. Compare that to Poland, which had three million Jews, fully ten percent of the country, yet we know there was pervasive anti-Semitism in Poland. If there was an anti-Semitism movement in Denmark, it was insignificant and not apparent to me. Of course, there were always exceptions.”
“Henryks?”
“Hendricksen. I don’t remember the Hendricksens being openly anti-Semitic. Ole was a member of a club and they all wore blue shirts. Not to school, of course, because uniforms were prohibited. There were political parties and there were groups and clubs. They had different dispositions, but I don’t recall any groups that were openly anti-Semitic. Not in the prewar years. Ole’s father was a day-worker down at the harbor. He’d sign on as a laborer whenever a fishing boat needed an extra hand. According to Ole, he was rough. Grethe told me that in discussions among her classmates, Ole would complain that his father drank too much and knocked him around. His mother worked long hours at the market.
“Although Denmark was generally a prosperous country, the Hendricksens were not. I suppose they felt more or less disenfranchised. In the thirties, during the depression years, Denmark suffered along with the rest of Europe. In the early thirties, it was basically the malcontented people in central Europe who were a tuning fork for Hitler’s hate campaign. They would look for someone to blame for their misfortune, and Hitler was offering up a scapegoat. But Denmark was relatively prosperous, especially as the decade was drawing to a close, and there was little audience for Hitler’s prattling. I know of no anti-Semitic movement for the Hendricksens to jump on. Denmark just wasn’t like that.”
“So you were acquainted with the Hendricksens?”
“Oh yes. I knew the two Hendricksen brothers. As I said, Ole was three years older and I didn’t know him very well. He was in my sister’s class. William was a year older than Ole. They were never serious students and always found themselves in one sort of jam or another. It was mostly petty stuff. Pranks. But they could be meanspirited. My sister always said they were the sort to kick a puppy. And it wasn’t just Grethe who felt that way.
“Getting back to your original question,” Britta says, “I never felt like an outsider because of my religion. My family worshipped at the Great Synagogue on Krystalgade, a very old and very grand synagogue, built in 1833. In 1933, when I was seven years old, my mother dressed Grethe and me in brand-new outfits and we all walked down to the Great Synagogue for the hundredth anniversary. It was a gala celebration. King Christian X attended the ceremony and delivered a congratulatory address.” Britta sits back and smiles at the recollection. “Like I said, it was very pleasant growing up Jewish in Copenhagen.” She pauses. “Until it wasn’t.”
Catherine rises to answer the intercom and returns with a smile. “Your amazing granddaughter has just arrived. She says she’s finished with her research. So, I’m afraid we’re going to have to break for the day. I really need to talk to her. As you know, we’re under some pressure; our motion is due to be filed shortly. If you wouldn’t mind, we’ll pause the narrative for today and we’ll pick it up right where we left off next time.”