On Tuesday December 13, Norton Jensen returned to give a fascinating story of his cousin Arne’s life as a Danish policeman under German occupation.

On September 19, 1944 German forces attacked every Danish police station. Policemen were packed like sardines into open trucks. Then, in Copenhagen, all 2500 police officers were herded into the hold of the Norwegian freighter M/S Cometa.

Two evening later they disembarked in Lubeck and then were transferred to Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg in cattle trucks, over fifty per truck. Here they were herded into a basement, then showered, deloused, and had a very short haircut.

At 5pm every day, all 20,000 prisoners were lined up for roll call.

On September 26, at noon, a departure roll call was held, and at 5pm cattle wagons arrived to take the police officers 300km to Buchenwald, a vast camp with 50,000 prisoners.

Weeks later they were given our their clothes back, packed in cattle wagons again and transported to Neuburgxdorf and marched to POW camp Stammlager IVB, where conditions were better. In January 1945, 100 prisoners, including Arne, were forcibly put to work at Wittenberg, drilling and riveting aircraft fuselages on 12 hour shifts.

In April, a convoy of Red Cross coaches arrived to take all Danish and Norwegian prisoners to Sweden. At the Danish border, Arne was spirited away into hospital with TB. When he had recovered, he rejoined Danish police force, retiring in 1984. He died in 2018 at the age of 96.

Following the talk, members enjoyed a full Christmas lunch at the Conservative club.

Vaga Probus is a men’s group that meets twice a month. Visitors are very welcome, please contact the secretary on 01452 831026 for details.