Sommerferie, Vestrefængsel
Cross stitch of a Red Deer, made by Danish resistance fighter
Here I was doing embroidery with my hands chained, something not nearly as difficult as it sounds. It had taken me only a week to do the needlework.
Niels Aage Skov, Letter to my Descendants, p. 273.
The embroidery was made by Niels Aage Skov while he was imprisoned at Vestrefængsel in the summer of 1944. Niels Aage was a Danish resistance fighter during WW2 who was captured and imprisoned in the summer of 1944. While in his solitary cell he was chained to his bed.
Niels Aage endured his imprisonment with good humor. He wrote “sommerferie” (“Summer break”) and “Vestrefængsel” (the name of the prison he was kept in) in the bottom right corner. Perhaps this is a joke about how he spent his whole summer break in prison.
After 3 months in prison, Niels Aage was transferred to Frøslevlejren, an internment camp in the south of Jutland, where he stayed for a time before being transferred to the Neuengamme concentration camp. He escaped during the evacuation of the camp in April 1945.
Later Niels Aage helped the U.S. Military Government in Eisleben, Germany. In 1947 he finished his degree at Copenhagen’s Technikum and became Armco International’s branch manager in Zurich in 1950. He eventually moved to the U.S. and got a Ph.D. from Oregon State University.
Sommerferie, Vestrefængsel
Denmark
1944
Thread, Wood
Gift of Diane Skov
2016.031.005
Paa Guds Velsignelse beror alt!
A religious embroidery. Embroidery has been a very popular as decorations in Danish homes. Many messages could be conveyed by them. In this case it says “Everything depends on God’s blessing!”
