Aase Geiger was born in October 1934 in Ordrup, Denmark [Annotator's Note: now part of Gentofte Municipality, Copenhagen, Denmark] outside of Copenhagen. She was the second of two girls. Her father had a car service like a taxi service and car repair shop. Her mother helped out in the office but not often. His mother's mother lived in Copenhagen. Her father's parents lived outside of Copenhagen. They lived in very old houses with land to grow vegetables on. They had a daughter with a mental problem they took care of. His father had a lot of cousins. She grew up in a nice neighborhood. It was comfortable and safe. She does not know if there were Jewish families there. They did not care of things like that and did not pay attention to that until the war started up. When Germany took over Denmark [Annotator's Note: German invasion of Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940], she was six and likely was just told they were at war and there would be German soldiers around. They [Annotator's Note: the Germans] took her school so she had to go to another school. That school had to have separate times for them. One week they would go in the afternoon while the previous school went in the morning. They would switch that up every week. Their old school was closer, and they had walked to it. The new school was a farther walk. That was the third or fourth grade. She started biking to school. People only had one car if they had a car. The German soldiers were very young guys. They occupied the central telephone station. There were soldiers walking around there and it was close to their home. They would smile and say hello. They were just young guys sent to do whatever they were doing there. Neither one interfered with the other. They did not stay in people's homes. Her father bought a gasoline station and very late in the war, the Germans came and took the gasoline. They did not really discuss the Germans being there and taking their school. In those days, children did not hear too much. They were told not to speak to the soldiers, but she did not speak German anyway, nor did the soldiers likely speak Danish. Copenhagen is very close to Sweden. Kids did not wear jewelry in those days. She does not recall her parents talking about the Germans. After school, they would go out and play. When it got dark, they had to be inside. In the winter, it got dark about three-thirty. At night, they did have to keep from showing any light outside. They went to school later in the winter too so they would be going in daylight. They had to eat a lot of porridge. They could not get a lot of things. Two or three years into the war they went on rations and had to use stamps from the government. She did not see bananas or oranges for years. The chocolate factories were making little frogs. Her father would buy a box when he could and every Sunday night after dinner, they would get one. A lot of people had apple trees and cherry trees in their yards. They had a summer home near a farm, and they could get things from them.

Aase Geiger and her family were able to go to their summer home under German occupation. They had rations but since her father owned a gas station, they were a little luckier than most. At one point, there was no gasoline. Her father had put a generator on the back of one of the cars. He put compressed sawdust, which they called briquets, in the generator and used it to drive to the summer house. There were times they had to bicycle there, and it took two to three hours. When they got wooden shoes, which they used at the time, they would get pieces of rubber tires and hammer them into the soles. Her grandmother was a seamstress and made their clothes. Her father was driving all kinds of businesspeople with his car service. One of his clients was in material manufacturing. He would get material from them. They did not visit her grandmother often because it was a little difficult to visit her. Women did not like to go into Copenhagen [Annotator's Note: Copenhagen, Denmark] with all the German soldiers around. They had a king who was King Christian X [Annotator's Note: Christian Carl Frederik Albert Alexander Vilhem]. The King decided to stay in the country, and he would ride through town every day on his horse. He did that for the whole war. Geiger was 11 when the war ended. She just went to school and did her things. She was not that interested in other things. There was always something on the King and Queen's birthdays. She would go to that, but not every year. They never talked about leaving the country. She did hear about the public strikes. The people had to be careful and tried to not let anyone know when, where, why, and how they were meeting. Geiger did not pay too much attention to these things. Her sister does not remember very much about the time either, even though she was the type who read more. If Geiger could go out to play, she was fine.

Aase Geiger was a girl scout. She had been at a meeting and as she was biking home, people were laughing and smiling. Cars were blowing their horns. The war was over. They started putting candles in the windows every 5 May after that and some people still do that. She was happy because everybody was happy. There was still a lot they could not get. They went to Sweden to get nylon, fruit, and more. They stored oranges in their basement. Every Sunday they would get an orange and a chocolate frog. They got their school back. There were people who suffered, but they did not. The police had all been sent to concentration camps. A woman who helped her mother clean, had a husband who was a policeman who got sent away. She rode a bicycle to do that work Monday through Saturday in any kind of weather. The teachers did not talk about what had happened. They were little kids. The grown-ups despised the Germans so if the kids said anything it would be that they did not like the Germans. They had rationing for a long time. Geiger did not go to high school. The only people who went to high school were the ones who were going to keep studying. Her sister did that but Geiger wanted out of school. It was fashionable for girls to go to England and be au pairs [Annotator's Note: young person who helps with housework or childcare in exchange for room and board]. She told her father she wanted to do that, but he did not let her. She ended up working in an insurance company office. His father [Annotator's Note: Geiger's grandfather] was then selling cars and knew people in the insurance company. He thought it would be good for her to learn and go to night school to pass a trade exam. She did that for two and a half years. His father got a Volkswagen [Annotator's Note: a German motor vehicle] dealership and put her to work for him. She tried not to do that, because she liked taking the train downtown. He gave her no choice, so she had to quit. She worked for her father until she married. He was just a person who wanted to take care of his family. When she worked at the insurance company, most nights she had to go down and send letters to people who had not made their car payments for her father. Her sister went to sewing school, so Geiger had to work at home. She paid her father to live at their home. Geiger got married and her husband was traveling all over Europe. She traveled with him. After three and a half years, she did not want to travel anymore. She got pregnant. When their son was born, he decided to find something to do that did not require travel. In those days, you could not get a job without a work permit, but you could not a get work permit without a job. Her husband decided to go into business for himself selling pearls to Danish jewelers. They did that for 22 years. Their son was 17 and had to go to college in America. Geiger said that if he was going to move to America, he would never want to move back so she said they should move too. That was in 1981. Her son attended six months of high school in the United States before attending college. He was a good tennis player and went to the University of Richmond [Annotator's Note: in Richmond, Virginia].

Aase Geiger has a couple of memorable experiences of World War 2. The English got very involved with flying over Copenhagen [Annotator's Note: Copenhagen, Denmark] and the Germans started bombing all over town. They planned to bomb the Shell Oil headquarters [Annotator's Note: called "Shellhus"]. Right next door was a French school [Annotator's Note: Institut Jeanne d'Arce, also called Den Franske Sole in Copenhagen, Denmark; 21 March 1945] and a lot of kids got killed. This was towards the end of the war. Geiger and her family lived near a radio manufacturing facility and the Germans bombed that. She and her sister shared a room. Their beds had moved due to the bombardment. They had not heard it. When they went out at night, they had to wear a white arm band. The school being hit was scary. They saw the pictures in the newspapers of the dead kids and the suffering parents. It was a mistake, but it was an effect of the bombing. In those days, children did not read newspapers. Her parents probably talked about the war, but she does not remember it. The war probably changed her parent's lives but not hers. They could start driving again and her mom got her own car. They could go out in the evenings again. Kids did what they did now that it was over. They could go to Sweden and they could buy nylon stockings. They were so expensive that they would get them fixed if they got a run. That happened at least once a week. They did not throw them out. They were not panty hose. When it was cold, they were as cold as ice on their legs. She thinks it is important to have the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], but she wonders how much the young people pay attention. She thinks anything about history is worth teaching about.