Hana and her fellow chaverim were placed on foster farms. Some lived close together and some lived far apart. While Hana was lonely in her life, adjusting from being part of a warm household to being a servant to a family with whom she shared no language, she understood how lucky she was.

In April of 1940, Denmark too was occupied, but unlike when the Nazis overtook Czechoslovakia, not much changed in Denmark. Because of the Danes Aryan looks and the importance of their food production for the Nazi army, they were spared the fate of so many other European countries. In addition, Kind Christian X of Denmark declared that all people in his country would be treated the same, regardless of their identity.

For three years, Hana moved from foster farm to foster farm. Her dream of sailing to Palestine soon vanished and reality set in; borders everywhere were closing and rumors of concentration camps were coming to the surface. In 1942, Hana decided she must have more of an education, so she began writing to schools asking if in exchange for work, she could attend classes. One school in Sorø, Denmark agreed. It was a finishing school which meant that it was intended for girls from rich families who wanted to learn how to keep a proper household. Every morning, Hana would wake up at 5 A.M. to clean and by 8 A.M. was sitting in the classroom.

After she graduated, a teacher set her up to work as a servant with a bankers family. It was now 1943. World War II was raging and the letters from back home stopped coming. Millions of people were being killed, including Hana’s parents and brother.

By the fall of 1943, Hitler decided that it was time to deport Denmark’s Jews, who up until this time felt little fear of persecution in comparison to Jews from other European counties. But, that plan was leaked to the resistance movement and in a spontaneous act of human decency, the Danes worked together, with cooperation from Sweden (who claimed neutrality throughout the war) to save 95% of the Jewish population. In the matter of a couple weeks in early October, over 7,000 Jews and members of the Danish resistance escaped across the Baltic Sea to Sweden.

Hana was on one of the last boats that left and shared this part of her survival story with the acting chief rabbi of Denmark, Marcus Melchior, who was escaping with his wife and children. The boat became lost at sea as it was navigated by a fisherman who had never sailed far from the coast before. For 19 hours, the refugees hid underneath herring with a paralyzing fear that would either drown or be caught and killed. It was by sheer luck that they found themselves on the safe shores of Sweden.

Once in Sweden, Hana found herself again in a new country, with no knowledge of the language, no money and no contacts. So, as she had done in Denmark, she wrote to schools asking if in exchange for cleaning, could she attain an education. A nursing school in the north of Sweden agreed. She remained there, creating a new life for herself, until the end of the war in 1945.