Sange fra en væg

'I Found Myself No Longer Alone'

By Jonas Olesen

During World War II, teenager Else Marie Pade composed a series of seemingly innocent songs, yet they were written against a dark and tragic backdrop.

Else Marie Pade grew up in Aarhus and performed as a singer in the 1940s with the orchestra The Blue Star Band. The orchestra played light jazz and performed at school parties and similar events. Concurrently, she received piano lessons from the organist Karen Brieg (1894–1962), a connection that would prove significant in Pade's life. Through Brieg, Pade became involved in a women's group engaged in resistance activities against the German occupation force – initially relatively innocent activities such as distributing illegal magazines, but later involving transporting explosives, espionage, and learning to shoot pistols and handle explosives.

In the resistance group, Pade went by the alias 'Eva Holm', and one of the companies she spied on was the telecommunications company Jydsk Telefon (The Jutlandic Telephone Company). The group planned to sabotage the company in case of an Allied invasion in Jutland, which never materialised. Ironically, many years later, Jydsk Telefon commissioned Pade to create an electronic piece to accompany a film about the company – resulting in the work 'Music for Jydsk Telefon' (1965). However, there is no indication that the company was to be sabotaged due to pro-German sentiments; rather, it was aimed at preventing the Germans from using the telephone network in the event of an Allied landing on the western coast of Jutland. During the same period, Pade also joined the national conservative party Dansk Samling, strong opponents of the German occupation but with an anti-parliamentary ideology. Pade was deeply involved in the resistance against the German occupation during World War II and took part in activities that ultimately would have resulted in the death penalty if she had been discovered.

Kira Martini © Dybfølt

However, luck ran out on a September morning in 1944, when Pade was apprehended under dramatic circumstances at her childhood home on Marstrandsgade in central Aarhus. This occurred after the Gestapo had fired warning shots at her in the open street and had assaulted a neighbour. She was subsequently taken back to the apartment, which was to be searched. When the Gestapo realized she could play the piano, the search evolved into an absurd scene, with Pade performing piano pieces for the Germans and her frightened mother.

However, the piano playing did not make much difference. Immediately after the search, Pade was taken to the Gestapo headquarters at Aarhus University and subjected to harsh interrogation. After the initial interrogation, she was placed in a cell at Aarhus Arrest and made a crucial decision: 'One night, when chaos reigned inside me, I screamed loudly in fear and despair in my solitary cell – but no one came. Then I promised myself that if I survived this, I would devote myself to music for the rest of my life. Then I felt a strange calmness. Light, warmth, and love surrounded me. I found myself no longer alone. This became the turning point in my life.'

During the night in her cell, she began to compose, lacking paper, she scratched the notes into the cell wall with a suspender buckle. The first composition from the cell was the song 'Du og jeg og stjernerne' ('You and I and the Stars'), with the first verse reading:

'The day that faded away,
The night that turned black,
The cloak of loneliness.
The gentle star,
The angel, so white,
The voice so close to my ear:'

Music, until then merely an entertaining element in Pade's life, now became her mental refuge, and engaging with it became a spiritual survival strategy.

When the Gestapo discovered the notes on the cell wall, it turned out that the German interrogator himself was a musician. He arranged for proper sheet music to be brought to her, and he and Pade engaged in lengthy conversations about, among others, Richard Wagner. Once again, a manifestation of the strange schizophrenia that could be present within the Gestapo, for the interrogations Pade underwent were violent, so-called 'enhanced interrogations', involving regular beatings and possibly actual torture. However, Pade has never described the abuse in detail.

After some time, she was interned in the Frøslev Camp in Southern Jutland, a camp established by Danish initiative to prevent internees from being sent to the German concentration camps. However, many inmates from the camp in Southern Jutland were still sent to the German camps, and several did not return alive. Pade's avoidance of this fate likely stems from the destruction of written materials about her resistance activities when the Royal Air Force bombed the Gestapo headquarters at Aarhus University in October 1944. Incidentally, several resistance fighters under interrogation perished there, so luck once again smiled upon Else Marie Pade.

Sven Dam Meinild and Mathæus Bech © Dybfølt

In the Frøslev Camp, she continued to compose songs, including 'Swingsko', which addresses the so-called 'swingpjatter' youths of the time – those who danced to swing music and dressed in distinctive clothing. One verse goes:

'Swing gives you high spirits,
You go crazy, drink milk through a straw,
Dancing on rubber soles
Amid pagan shouts and screams.'

Pade excels here in a pure schlager style, but the naivety and humour in the lyrics likely served as a distraction amidst the desolation. While being imprisoned in the camp was incomparable to being in a German concentration camp, the experience undoubtedly took its toll on the inmates – particularly the constant fear of 'transport', when selected prisoners were sent to Germany.

However, loneliness is no longer present for Pade as it was in Aarhus Arrest, for in the camp, Karen Brieg and the others from the women's resistance group are also present, and they sing and compose together. They provide Pade not only with moral support but also with concrete assistance in realising her musical dreams: As a birthday gift, she receives a sum of money from everyone in her dormitory to pay for a conservatory education, and arrangements are made for the Wilhelm Hansen music publishing company to sponsor her. Last but not least, she meets her future husband in the camp: The composer and playwright Henning Pade, through whom she later secures a position at the Danish Broadcasting Cooperation (DR), where she goes on create her electronic compositions. Thus, the stay in the Frøslev Camp became crucial for Pade's further professional and artistic life.

Eventually, her past catches up with her many years later, and in the mid-1970s, she experiences significant psychological problems, the aftermath of the violent experiences during the occupation. This also leads to a sharp decline in her compositional activities for a number of years, and she increasingly turns to religion.

Kirstine Elise Pedersen © Dybfølt

Pade's experiences during the occupation can be seen as a personal maturation process, where she transitioned from a teenager to an adult, and where the traumatic experiences gave her the courage to choose an uncertain career as a composer. This was a rare career path at the time, especially for a woman.

After the liberation in 1945, Pade gets married and embarks on her productive career. It may appear as quite a departure from her early naive pop songs to the serious electronic and modernist compositional music she begins crafting from the 1950s onward.

If her musical career had ended after the war, the songs might not have been considered of greater significance, but rather as a result of pastime activities in the Frøslev Camp. Fortunately, that was not the case, and today the songs are not only historically interesting but can be heard as the seed of Pade's later extensive and diverse production.
 

Notes
A selection of the songs has previously been released on CD: Sange midt i mørket: Musik i Frøslevlejren 1944-45 (OH Musik, 2005). In the booklet accompanying this release, readers can find a comprehensive essay by Henrik Marstal and Henriette Moos describing the background of the songs.

Further information about Else Marie Pade's resistance work can be found in Hedda Lundh: Ikke noget theselskab. Var vi terrorister? Om en gruppe kvinder i modstandskampen (Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2002).