A literary historical novel and family saga centered on women navigating war, liberation, and the cost of choosing their own future.
In occupied Copenhagen, Kirsten Marie Pedersen comes of age in a house marked by silence, scarcity, and fear. With an alcoholic father and an exhausted mother, she and her sisters, learn early that endurance is expected, while ambition is dangerous.
When the war ends and Europe’s borders reopen, Kirsten seizes an unexpected chance to leave Denmark behind. She follows her sister to Germany and secures work as a translator at the Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, assisting American forces in the hunt for Nazi fugitives. In the unsettled aftermath of war, she encounters freedom, desire, and a cross-cultural love that offers both possibility and risk.
But when tragedy fractures her family, Kirsten must choose between loyalty to the past and the uncertain promise of a new life. Drawn by love and the hope of reinvention, she faces a decision that will carry her across the Atlantic—and change her forever.
Inspired by more than 100 real letters written by the author’s grandmother, The book is a historically grounded novel of female agency, family bonds, and survival in a world rebuilding after war.
A literary historical novel and family saga centered on women navigating war, liberation, and the cost of choosing their own future.
In occupied Copenhagen, Kirsten Marie Pedersen comes of age in a house marked by silence, scarcity, and fear. With an alcoholic father and an exhausted mother, she and her sisters, learn early that endurance is expected, while ambition is dangerous.
When the war ends and Europe’s borders reopen, Kirsten seizes an unexpected chance to leave Denmark behind. She follows her sister to Germany and secures work as a translator at the Fürstenfeldbruck Air Base, assisting American forces in the hunt for Nazi fugitives. In the unsettled aftermath of war, she encounters freedom, desire, and a cross-cultural love that offers both possibility and risk.
But when tragedy fractures her family, Kirsten must choose between loyalty to the past and the uncertain promise of a new life. Drawn by love and the hope of reinvention, she faces a decision that will carry her across the Atlantic—and change her forever.
Inspired by more than 100 real letters written by the author’s grandmother, The book is a historically grounded novel of female agency, family bonds, and survival in a world rebuilding after war.
Kirsten is frozen in place, too scared to move. At her feet, splinters of glass are scattered across the dining room floor. One wrong move and her world shatters.
“Oh, for crying out loud, child!”
The whoosh of her father’s blow sweeps past her temple, but she is prepared and ducks just in time. The smell of sour tobacco and scorched metal hits her nose. The next blow from his rough worker’s fist lands squarely on her jaw. The force snaps her head to the side. A burning sensation shoots up her spine before settling as a nauseating ache in her stomach.
At ten years old, Kirsten understands when adults discuss serious matters, though she doesn’t fully grasp their meaning. Her parents’ arguments and worries mostly center on money matters and a situation in Germany. A dangerous man named Hitler and his National Socialists, who are not the benevolent type of socialists, are causing trouble. Otherwise, her parents mostly talk about food prices and unemployment.
“Little pitchers have big ears,” her mother usually says, before shooing Kirsten away. But she forgot to do that tonight.
Moments before, Kirsten had been sitting at the dinner table, carefully finishing the last detail of an ‘E’ in her red notebook, hoping for her teacher’s approval. Just as she was about to blow the ink dry, her parents’ conversation shifted. This evening, the usual concerns — Copenhagen’s unrest, her older brothers, and their ongoing money troubles — were put aside. They were talking about something that happened down in Germany.
Shattered windows, people beaten and shot, women and children driven away in trucks. Kirsten didn’t want to linger and listen. Yet she sat immobile. A drop of dark ink dripped from the tip of her pen and landed between two lines of her letters. Tears welled in her eyes as her careful work was ruined. Watching the ink bleed, she imagined brown-shirted men running through shattered glass with clubs, smashing shopfronts and windows.
“Will I have to stay home from school tomorrow?” she asked. She was supposed to play hopscotch and marbles with the girls from her class; they had agreed on it.
Her mother folded her arms across her chest. “Do you think I want you under my feet all day?” she said in a voice that suggested everything was perfectly fine, “Of course you’re going to school, you little fool.”
A waft of her father’s sweat, combined with the smell of cooked potatoes, filled Kirsten’s nostrils. She took one last swig of milk before heading to her room, but in her haste, the glass slipped and broke.
Kirsten is reeling from the blow. She breaks her fall, landing hard on her hands and knees. When she looks up, she catches her father’s eyes over the box of paper dolls on the dining table. His expression makes her think of bugs being crushed beneath a heel and she wants to flee; to disappear under the floorboards.
At the corner of her vision, the glass shards glint. White drops, like glistening pearls of snow, sway gently on the sharp edges. Kirsten swallows hard, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. With a tiny popping sound, a strand pulls from her scalp. Everything is my fault, she thinks. The shattered glass. Father’s rage. What he will do to Mother later.
Kirsten’s mother looks up from the table where she is stacking plates after dinner. “Karl, that’s enough now.”
“Oh, shut up, Edith! Can’t a man get two minutes of peace in this house?”
Kirsten’s knee feels as if it is on fire.
“Get up off the floor, child. Don’t just lie there,” her mother sighs.
The searing pain in Kirsten’s knee is drowned out by a throbbing ache in her palm. As she lifts her hand, a bloody streak appears between her fingers, making her lightheaded.
“I’m sorry, Dad.” Kirsten slowly rises, a tingling sensation running down her shin as another trickle of blood flows.
“You scoundrel!” Snorting, her father picks up the latest Danish newspaper, Socialdemokraten, from the pile and goes to his armchair by the stove.
Kirsten sways. One, two, three, she counts to herself before pulling up her knee-high socks. As she does, a surge of anger hits her. Gone is the pain in her knee and palm. The hatred feels white-hot. If she dared, she would ask, “Why do you get so angry at me, Dad? Why am I always afraid around you?” Instead, she tiptoes out of the living room, carefully avoiding the broken glass as she goes to fetch a bucket and cloth from the kitchen.
As she sweeps up the glittering shards onto yesterday’s newspaper, she overhears fragments of her parents’ discussion.
“Thousands of storefront windows smashed… Jews driven away… concentration camps… synagogues set on fire.”
“Who did this?” Kirsten’s mother sets down the stack of dirty plates with a forceful thud. Hoping for a treat, Spot sits beside her, fixated on her every move.
Even before her father answers, Kirsten recognizes his sigh, as if the answer to her mother’s question is obvious. “Goebbels.”
Kirsten rubs the cloth against the diamonds on the floor. Her parents’ conversation continues. “Brownshirts… Swastikas… Communists…”
With each word, Kirsten’s chest tightens, and she swallows hard to keep the sob lodged high in her throat from escaping.
She glances up, noticing the way her mother’s shoulders hunch up to her ears as she slowly moves around the table, gathering the dirty cutlery. “He doesn’t even remotely resemble their image of an ideal Aryan. Far from their notion of a perfect human,” she says.
“Work rumors have it they released prisoners and put them in uniforms. Murderers, rapists, and psychopaths turned into Brownshirts.” Her dad coughs. “They have no moral compass and will do anything for their superiors.”
“Imagine just standing idly by.” With a sigh, Kirsten’s mother wipes her hands on her apron, the fabric stretched across her pregnant belly. “Germans used to be such fine people.” Her movements are jerky as she wipes the dining table with a grayish rag.
“Do you think things would be any better up here?” Kirsten’s father snorts. The newspaper snaps as he turns a page. “No one stands up for those the majority tramples on.”
“Hopefully we won’t see Jewish people wandering north after this.” With a sweep of the rag, Kirsten’s mother gathers a few crumbs in her palm.
“Those in power will never truly understand the life of ordinary people.” A sound like a whip crack fills the room as he flips another page. “We must tread carefully to avoid creating an ‘us versus them’ mentality.” He picks up his pipe and singes the top of the tobacco. “Together we are stronger.”
Kirsten presses down on the rag, watching the soapy water streak across the floor. The fireplace crackles. Her father takes his time holding the flame above the tobacco pipe, charring and puffing.
“Denmark’s National Socialist Workers’ Party has five thousand members. Maybe the Nazis will get seats in Parliament here after the next election.”
Kirsten’s mother picks at a corner of her apron. “It’s probably just a temporary craze in Germany. The Danish people won’t fall for that.”
From behind the newspaper, Kirsten´s father sighs. “Denmark is the country with the most Nazi parties and the fewest Nazis. People have no qualms opposing us socialists in whatever way they can.” Scowling, he continues, “Watching them march through the streets making those ridiculous salutes, looking for trouble — it makes me sick to my stomach.”
“Don’t you think our boys will straighten them out?” Her mother glances toward the end of the dining table where Kirsten’s older brothers usually sit.
Does that explain why Laust, Martin, and Knud often get home late? Kirsten thinks to herself. Is that why her mother tells them that “mad cats get their skin torn” as she gently dabs their grazed cheekbones?
After checking the floor twice, Kirsten wraps the shards in newspaper, tucking in the ends to prevent any from slipping loose, before dropping the bundle into the kitchen bin.
In her cloth shoes, she tiptoes into the bedroom she shares with Martha and little Ingrid. Martha is out enjoying herself again. She’s allowed much more freedom since her confirmation. Ingrid is, doing the dishes in the kitchen — standing on her stool so she can better reach. Playing school, her voice carries through the house, with Ingrid as the teacher. Kirsten smiles. Her younger sister is so eager to begin school next summer.
Her father’s voice carries from the living room, too. Kirsten hears him say something about giving someone a thrashing and feels her throat getting dry. If the men in brown shirts ever felt her father’s fists, they’d quickly come to understand the meaning of behaving.
Kirsten sighs as she undresses. She tries so hard. But it always goes wrong somehow. The memory of her father’s blows makes her back muscles tense. His presence always puts her on high alert. How do Martha and Ingrid avoid his anger when she can’t? Climbing into bed, Kirsten folds her hands above the blanket. Dear God, make me good. Amen.
She finds a good strand of hair and wraps it around her index finger, twisting until she reaches the root. Then she pulls. When she opens her hand, a chestnut-brown curl unfolds.
It’s all my fault. I talk too much and I’m not cautious enough.
Kirsten places the strand of hair over the cut on her palm and presses down with her thumb. It pulses, warm and tender. Then she scrapes a fingernail across the raw, throbbing wound on her knee. Tears well in her eyes at the pain, but the burning ache sends her thoughts fleeing. Turning onto her side, she folds her hands again and whispers: One day you’ll be free of me. Then you won’t have to deal with my cheekiness, Dad. And you will no longer have to endure my difficult nature, Mom.
Désirée Ohrbeck’s The Scandinavian War Bride was originally published in Danish. It’s not surprising that it received critical acclaim and was selected by over 80% of the Danish Public Library system. It’s not surprising that the response was sufficiently enthusiastic to inspire Ohrbeck to produce an English language version. Inspired by a true story of post-war hardship and women’s sacrifice, Ohrbeck’s work was assisted and given authenticity by over 100 real letters written by her grandmother after the war.
Ohrbeck’s tale follows the life journey of the protagonist, Kirsten Maree Pedersen. Shaped by a childhood in a home of scarcity, with an exhausted mother and violent alcoholic father, Kirsten moves from her childhood home in war-torn Denmark to follow her sister to Germany, where she works for the American military pursuing Nazis. The ending of the war and her move to Germany delivers freedom. But her sister’s love for an American airman leads to a tragedy that fractures the family. Eventually, drawn by her own love and desires, Kirsten makes a painful choice that will carry her across the Atlantic. Like so many other war brides, she will leave everything familiar and comfortable behind to chase a dream.
The Scandinavian War Bride is a work of historical fiction that sheds light on the lifestyle and thinking of a generation of women, many of whom made a difficult choice between home and family and a promised new life and love. Kirsten and her family come to life and leap off the pages. Ohrbeck takes us deep into Kirsten’s heart and mind, letting us read her thoughts and feel her emotions, and showing us how the culture and thinking of the time shaped ideas and choices. This story helps us understand the attitudes of the era and place and the thinking of a generation of men and women whose ideas and ideals are completely foreign, and possibly quite bewildering, to younger generations. Ohrbeck offers a gritty but realistic portrait of women who must struggle and sacrifice to reach their dreams, exposing the often high price of choosing their own path.
Désirée Ohrbeck’s The Scandinavian War Bride should have wide appeal. For lovers of historical fiction, it sheds light on life in Denmark and Germany during and after WWII and on the thinking and attitudes of a generation of women who sacrificed the familiar for love and life in a strange new world. It will also appeal to lovers of family sagas and truly great women’s fiction. It’s a story rooted in truth, resilience and moral complexity, and thus one that will satisfy any reader who appreciates a great story by an author with real talent and an appreciation of what makes great literature. It’s an enjoyable read, but it’s also a thought-provoking study of a time and society and behaviours by women that many, today, struggle to understand.