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Ten historic pictures that show life in Denmark decades ago

These historic images give a glimpse into life in Denmark in decades past.

Published: 13 June 2018 16:15 CEST
Ten historic pictures that show life in Denmark decades ago
Christiania in the 1970s. Photo: Steen Jacobsen/Ritzau Scanpix

1. Miss Denmark, 1930

In 1930, Miss Esther Petersen was named Miss Denmark and took part in the Miss Europa competition in Paris, which records show was won by Miss Greece. Denmark first chose a national beauty queen in 1926 and the competition still exists today.


Photo: Ritzau Scanpix

2. Workers in radio factory, Copenhagen, 1966

This photo shows assembly workers in the factory of Danish radio maker TO-R. The factory closed that year after the company became insolvent.


Photo: Svend Aage Mortensen/Ritzau Scanpix

3. Copenhagen City Square, approx. 1937

Copenhagen City Square (Rådhuspladsen), one of the most recognisable and busiest spots in the Danish capital, as it once looked in a photo thought to be from 1937. 


Photo: Unknown/Ritzau Scanpix

4. Memorials at Nyhavn, 1950

Another of Copenhagen's most famous sights is Nyhavn, with its brightly-coloured harbourside houses and tourist-friendly cafes and restaurants. Here it is in 1950 with two memorial crosses erected at the end of the harbour.

Photo: Unknown/Ritzau Scanpix

5. Stop for aircraft, 1959

A road and a runway cross at Karup in Jutland.


Photo: Willy Lund/Ritzau Scanpix

6. Christiania, 1970s

Christiania, the subversive 'freetown' in Copenhagen, started life as a hippie squat in 1971. Here it is in its early years.


Photo: Steen Jacobsen/Ritzau Scanpix

7. Before the Metro

Before the Copenhagen Metro or Aarhus Light Rail, Denmark had trams. Here a tourist tram takes visitors to Copenhagen's sights in 1966 or 1967.


Photo: Bjarne Lütchke/Ritzau Scanpix

8. Kødbyen, 1960s

Copenhagen's Meatpacking District is today one of the city's trendiest areas, with a host of enticing bars, restaurants and cafes. This 1960s photo shows cows being brought to market to be slaughtered.


Photo: Per Pejstrup/Ritzau Scanpix

9. Øresund Bridge, 1998

The Øresund Bridge connecting Copenhagen with the Swedish city of Malmö opened in 2000. Here it is two years earlier.


Photo: Martin Dam Kristensen/Ritzau Scanpix

10. European champions, 1992

100,000 fans turned out at the City Hall Square in Copenhagen on June 27th, 1992 as the Denmark football team returned home with the European Championships trophy.

Photo: Thomas Sjørup/Ritzau Scanpix

SEE ALSO: IN PICTURES: 2018 Copenhagen Marathon

TODAY IN FRANCE

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

France has paved the way towards paying reparations to more relatives of Algerians who sided with France in their country's independence war but were then interned in French camps.

Published: 16 May 2023 08:29 CEST
France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

More than 200,000 Algerians fought with the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.

At the end of the war, the French government left the loyalist fighters known as Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises it would look after them.

Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the new authorities took revenge.

Thousands of others who fled to France were held in camps, often with their families, in deplorable conditions that an AFP investigation recently found led to the deaths of dozens of children, most of them babies.

READ ALSO Who are the Harkis and why are they still a sore subject in France?

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of his country for abandoning the Harkis and their families after independence.

The following year, a law was passed to recognise the state’s responsibility for the “indignity of the hosting and living conditions on its territory”, which caused “exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma”, and recognised the right to reparations for those who had lived in 89 of the internment camps.

But following a new report, 45 new sites – including military camps, slums and shacks – were added on Monday to that list of places the Harkis and their relatives were forced to live, the government said.

Now “up to 14,000 (more) people could receive compensation after transiting through one of these structures,” it said, signalling possible reparations for both the Harkis and their descendants.

Secretary of state Patricia Miralles said the decision hoped to “make amends for a new injustice, including in regions where until now the prejudices suffered by the Harkis living there were not recognised”.

Macron has spoken out on a number of France’s unresolved colonial legacies, including nuclear testing in Polynesia, its role in the Rwandan genocide and war crimes in Algeria.

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