Home Town Kid Makes Good

Ben Olander Lecture in Stockholm

We attended a lecture today sponsored by the English Speaking Community Club of Stockholm on the humanitarian work of Raoul Wallenberg. The lecture was presented by Ben Olander, a native born Swede who has taken to lecturing and music in a late-in-life career.

Raoul Wallenberg

Olander’s lecture contained well-deserved doses of Swedish pride in the retelling of the heroism of a fellow Swede who achieved international fame during World War II, a worldwide occurrence that most Swedes witnessed from a neutral sideline. The lecture was also part of a personal retelling of Olander’s childhood encounter with anti-Semitism and his recurring theme that “evil thrives on others passivity.”  

Prior to the lecture, our personal understanding of Raoul Wallenberg was no more than a thin veneer applied to the enormity of the holocaust. Heartfelt renderings of tales of rescue shared by Olander increased our emotional connection to Wallenberg. We now wanted to understand more of the historic background of his work.

The short narrative is that Wallenberg was born into affluence near Stockholm in 1912.  He received a degree in architecture from the University of Michigan in 1935. He was linguistically talented, speaking Swedish, English, Russian, German and French, which aided in his business partnership in a food import/ export business with Koloman Lauer, a Hungarian Jew. As Hitler’s European domination advanced, Wallenberg became the travelling partner and witnessed firsthand the injustice of the Nazis.  

Protective Pass Issued
by Wallenberg

Bronze Briefcase on Foundation of
Wallenberg's Birth Home

Propelled out of passivity and with financial backing from the US War Refugee Board, Wallenberg traveled in June 1944 to Budapest as part of the Swedish legation. There he tirelessly issued Swedish protective passes from his now famously memorialized leather briefcase and literally saved thousands of lives. He disappeared in January 1945 as Soviet troops expelled the Germans from Hungary.

The shifting political considerations in Hungry that opened fissures in Nazi control that enabled Wallenberg’s bravery to thrive are equally interesting.

Hungarian and German troops both suffered great losses in the failed siege of Leningrad that ended in January 1944.  Hitler left Leningrad with a desire to press on; Hungarian leadership opened separate peace talks with the West. Working with neutral countries such as Sweden to save Jews was both humanly and politically expedient. Even German leader Heinrich Himmler imagined a post war role would be better advanced by less Jewish persecution in Hungary. 

Hungarian and German soldiers
 arrest Jews in Budapest - October 1944.

Hitler was less inclined to post-war considerations and sent troops in October 1944 to occupy his now recalcitrant ally. Chaos ensued. Wallenberg responded and established “Swedish houses” in Pest, protecting 30,000 Jews under Swedish- flagged legation buildings. In January 1945, Wallenberg relocated across the Danube to Buda in the Jewish ghetto that had been targeted for a final solution. Bribery, chutzpah and Wallenberg’s threat to personally pursue a post-war crime execution of the commanding German, General Schmidthuber, saved 120,000 Jews.

So despite some skipped historic facts, we hope that Olander will continue to pour Swedish pride into his lectures aimed primarily at Swedish teenagers. All generations, no matter how removed from events, need role models that forsake passivity in the face of evil.

London Calling

We took advantage of Jay’s business trip to pop over to London for three days.  It may sound “oh so” jet setter-like, but London is actually closer to us than Boston is to our home in Atlanta.  Europe’s compactness still challenges our American sense of distance. Cities that were once shrouded in a romantic allure of long-distance travel now reside in our nearby orbit. After London, Jay flew to Oslo, a mere 55-minute flight from our home in Stockholm. 

Based on more favorable ticket prices, we flew early Sunday morning to London’s Gatwick Airport. We then navigated the express train to Victoria Station followed by a ride on the Underground to Paddington. Figuring out all these connections had its challenges, but there was a sense of wonderful comfort returning to a world filled with English language signage.

After checking into the hotel, we strolled through Kensington Gardens on the Princess Diana Memorial Walkway on our way to the Natural History Museum. The museum was on our tour list for two reasons: (1) its fabulous dinosaur display and (2) free admission!

We passed through the Great Hall and down corridors filled with mounted birds and fossilized sea creatures to queue for the escalators for the dinosaur display. That ride put us on a walkway suspended from the ceiling, which allowed us to see the open, two-tiered display from an unusual birds-eye view. 

To the delight of children and adults alike, several models of dinosaurs perched on top of display cases were animated and looked as though they were fighting. Other dinosaurs, seen now only in skeleton form, challenged one to internalize that these creatures were once masters of the earth. A final display of life-sized animated T-Rex throwing its head up and then down close to the crowd and roaring in a menacing way gave all a sense of the power and size of this beast that ruled the earth 65 million years ago.

On Monday morning Jay headed to the office and Helen to Oxford Street, one of the main shopping districts, where she found a number of after-Christmas sales and bargains. Even the regularly priced items at drug stores, such as toothpaste and lotion, were cheaper than in Stockholm, so she filled her backpack. A lead from a sales clerk at one store led her to Debenham’s, a lovely department store with a large selection of formal dresses. It was here that she found the gown she plans to wear at Eric and Joy’s wedding.

Monday evening was dinner at a traditional British pub of meat pies and a pint of ale followed by a theater performance of Ghost at the Piccadilly Theater. The actors' performances and the special effects were a real treat.

On Tuesday, Jay continued at the office and Helen capped her shopping trip to London with a visit to Harrod’s.  The famed Egyptian Staircase is a must-see. Despite a half day shopping effort, her only purchase was a lunchtime bowl of pea soup at the Tea Room. 

"Cheers!"

Date Night

We are becoming more and more acclimated to life in Stockholm.  Upon returning from our most recent seven-day holiday trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, we both sighed “Home” as we touched down at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport.  Although we still fail to understand most of the headlines splashed in large block letters across supermarket tabloids, food shopping and other everyday affairs now seem…well…normal.

It was with genuine American spontaneity that we decided to celebrate this increasing comfort with a date night.  Dinner at a recently discovered easy jazz club would be followed by a movie and a slow arm-in-arm stroll home.  Our spur-of-the-moment energy, however, quickly encountered the ever-present logical, orderly and well-considered constructs of Swedish living. 

Our inquiry on the theater’s website to confirm show times revealed that one does not dash headlong to movies.  Not only must most tickets be purchased in advance from the website, specific seating is selected as well. We soon realized that our Saturday night spontaneity had already been felt days earlier by forever forward planning Swedes.  Seats for the show times we desired were already reserved, booked and sold out.

So with Yankee adaptability, we reserved tickets for a Sunday matinee and on Saturday night headed out to Louis Jazz Club for dinner, music and some dancing. 

At Louis Jazz Club, a live band played swing jazz from Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong and Gene Kruppa to the delight of an appreciative gray-haired audience who most likely first heard this music played by Benny Goodman, Louie Armstrong, et al.  The band of clarinet, drums, xylophone, guitar and bass fiddle was augmented with rotating horn and piano players.  The music was grand and our meal was equally satisfying.  We now have of new Stockholm “haunt.”

Our Sunday matinee movie date was a showing of John Le Carre’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.”  Our multiplex theater contains 8 salons with each salon having a seating capacity of about 100 people.  We found our pre-selected seats, listened and partially understood the traditional Swedish admonition recited by an usher of theater rules (e.g. turn off mobile phones) and then settled into the movie. 

The film was a two-hour slow unrolling of a cold war era spy-vs-spy adventure within the British intelligence community called the Circus.   Most adult films here are shown in their original English (or native language) with Swedish subtitles. The only time we are at a loss is when a non-English speaking character, like an evil Russian agent or double crossing Hungarian general, speaks in their native language. Swedish subtitle translations are provided and we are left to fill in the gaps with our imaginations.

We are, nonetheless, going with the flow. We will book movie tickets in advance, take our number at the bank, fish market, pharmacy, wherever, and wait patiently for our turn.  It is all logical and orderly….Spock would be pleased.

Dining for Women Study Tour to Nepal, 2011

From November 2 - 15, 2011, 15 Dining for Women members traveled to Nepal to witness firsthand the impact that the generous financial giving of over 6,000 members of DFW have had on the lives of other women in the world. 

Inside bathroom door at Utse

Inner courtyard at Landmark 

We stayed in nice hotels (Landmark Hotel in Pokhara) and low-class trekker accommodations (Utse Hotel in Kathmandu). Our three days of camping on a mountain top were made even more upscale with nice latrines and shower tents.

One of the most heart-warming experiences that happened to us over and over again was how we were greeted by the women in the Heifer co-ops. Without fail we received a garland of marigolds and clapping to pay tribute to our arrival. These women were so glad and honored to have us come to visit them! Additional gifts from various groups came in the forms of powdered tikkas on our foreheads and white silk scarves that they draped around our necks.

It was so inspiring and reassuring to see what the Nepalese women had done. I really have to give the people at Heifer International a lot of credit for the education and training they have provided that has changed the culture of whole villages for the better. As one woman said, “If I had a cup of rice left over from a meal, I would throw it away before I would give it to my hungry neighbor.” Now, in several communities, each woman tries to keep aside a handful of uncooked rice daily that they gather together regularly and give to a poor family in the village. They have learned to help each other and that they get a lot further a lot faster by working together for common goals. 

W/ my bff Mary in front of our 2 woman tent

My birthday in Nepal w/ DFW friends