08 May Stockholm – The War in Europe is Over!
Stockholm on May 7, 1945, in front of the Stockholm Concert Hall and the Orfeus statue
On May 7, 1945, word came to Stockholm that Germany had signed military surrender documents. It was a glorious sunny day. The church bells were ringing. My mother, Hedy Johnson, and her friends joined the Norwegians in the throngs who paraded through Stockholm. People were hanging out of their office windows, throwing papers to the street below. Toilet paper streamers hung from the buildings. Confetti fell like snow.
Open bed trucks and fancy convertibles, all overflowing with jubilant men and women waving to the crowds drove slowly down the streets alongside the buses and trams. Everyone was in a frenzy, singing, cheering, waving flags and bouquets of flowers. Hedy and her group made their way through the crowded streets to the Hôtel Anglais at Stureplan. In addition to the Americans, the Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes jammed into the restaurant, dancing and singing. Champagne flowed like water. Hedy danced the jitterbug.
She sat down to rest next to a Norwegian who until just three weeks earlier had been in a German concentration camp for two years. He was so thin it was hard for her to look at him but they talked for a long time. “I’ll never forget his eyes; they were bulging,” she wrote the next day. The American Legation crowd ended up at Hedy’s apartment and stayed until 2 am.
Hedyhe slipped into her bed at midnight, couldn’t sleep but was able to rest her weary body.
“I listened to the broadcast from London – would be wonderful to be there tonight. It certainly means everything to the people in London. One doesn’t get any such feeling here of course.”
The owner of her apartment building was furious about all the racket. The next day she told them that if any more noise came from their flat they would be kicked out! Some Swedes were not celebrating Fredsdagen, the Peace Day.
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