Birthday party at Tanja and Erik's
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2012
1
17
28
Trip End
Apr 19, 2012
Mern, Zealand, Denmark
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Present were Erik and Tanja's sisters and brothers and their families, their parents, my mother and some close friends. Then there was me, Erik's aunt. I think they are all terrific and Erik and Tanja are cool, fun and incredibly hospitable.Tanja and prepared the dinner for days. She has an additional kitchen in their out-building: Oven, stove, fridge etc.
All my favorite foods were there: creamy potatoes, rare meat cooked on an outdoor Weber grill, green salad with feta cheese, tomatoes and water melon, a plate of sliced organs with olives, chill and a little cream, small potato cubes overcooked with sun dried tomatoes and whole cloves of garlic, focaccia bread, fresh pine apple, roasted sunflower seeds, tzatziki and so on. Stunning!
After dinner and coffee the men and boys and a few others disappeared into the living room to watch the new Tin Tin movie, while the rest of us talked.
I came home late and read an interesting case study of 400 people arriving in a barge from a concentration camp in Northern Germany to Klintholm Havn, Møn, in 1945. A local doctor describes in detail how he organized their treatment, obtained accommodation for a hospital, procured equipment from beds and sheets to clothes and cooking equipment for the kitchen. The refuges had slept directly on the floor boards at the bottom of the ship for several weeks with no food, no water, no sanitation - terrible! The list of diseases very serious. Nevertheless, fewer than expected died and this temporary hospital was closed 3-4 months later. In all 200,000 German refugees came to Denmark and were gradually resettled back in Germany by 1949.
