Saturday 5 October 2019

Passport Portraits of Yesteryear no.40

Christmas with Mum and Dad
Continuing the series of passport portraits in my collection.
Peruse and wonder.
Ethel Erichsen is a 38 yr, old Danish lady living in Haderslev, Denmark. The Christian name, Ethel, does not sound very Scandinavian and this is because Ethel was born in England. 

It is now November 1945. The German occupation of Denmark is over and life is very slowly getting back to normal. Ethel obtains a Danish passport and a visa allowing her to leave Denmark for one month. She gets a British visa from the consulate in Copenhagen which is issued to her for a single visit on the basis of her 'British Parentage'. She leaves the port of Esbjerg on 15th December 1945 and her ship docks at Harwich on the 17th. 
Travelling on a Danish passport, despite her British parentage, makes her an alien and, upon arrival, she is obliged to register her presence at the local police station. She spends the first Christmas with her family since the outbreak of the war and does not leave the UK until 20th February 1946, having changed £6, 5/- into Danish currency at the National Westminster Bank before embarkation. She arrives at Esbjerg two days later, meaning that she has overreached her Danish exit permission by one month but no official sanctions appear to have been levied. I think that was understandable in the circumstances.

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