Blanca Tidemand, who was a member of the Danish Resistance during World War II and helped Jews to escape to safety, died of complications from a fractured neck Feb. 10 at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. She was 92 and lived in Mays Chapel Village.
Born Blanca Petersen in Marstal, Denmark, she was the daughter of a sea captain. She completed high school and was a gymnast and piano player.
She married Odin Tidemand in 1938 and moved to Copenhagen. After Germany occupied the country during World War II, she and her husband became active in the Danish Resistance. They played a role in delivering information detailing the location of German bomb factories on the island of Fanoe to Allied forces in England.
During this time, her husband was an assistant minister of fisheries in Esbjerg and helped coordinate the destruction of Nazi trains taking food from Denmark to Germany.
"My mother attended secret Danish Resistance training sessions in Esbjerg and learned to shoot a rifle with other Resistance wives," said her son, Odin Tidemand of Silver Spring. "After having to escape from Esbjerg to Copenhagen, they became involved in providing safe transport for Jews from Denmark to Sweden."
During this period, her first-born son, also named Odin, died of pneumonia at 12 months as a result of a lack of medical attention and a shortage of supplies that the occupying Germans controlled.
"My mother was strong and shared the responsibility of being a Resistance worker, always on the verge of being found out by the Nazis," her son said. "Throughout the war, my parents made sacrifices. They made sudden departures trying to avoid arrest in Copenhagen. They were harassed and threatened by the Gestapo in their home."
Her son said the Gestapo raided his parents' apartment many times. They threatened them at gunpoint and gave their daughter loaded guns to play with.
"She was putting her life out there as much as my father was," said her son, who said his father helped counterfeit gasoline and kerosene ration cards so Danish fishermen could transport Jews to neutral Sweden.
Her husband employed disguises and changed his name to Madsen. At one point, his makeover was so convincing that Mrs. Tidemand confused her husband with a Gestapo agent.
"Tricking the Nazis and staying on the move were everyday occurrences in their lives," her son said. "My mother and father's close friend and his son were shot in their front yard by Gestapo officers while their friend's school-age daughter was forced to watch. They were killed because of their Resistance activities."
In 1945, her husband was arrested by the Gestapo. He won his freedom by convincing the Nazis authorities that he was not the person they were looking for.
About this time, Mrs. Tidemand eluded capture by taking her young daughter and moving from hiding place to hiding place in Copenhagen.
After the war, she and her husband were administrators at a hospital for the criminally insane on the island of Livoe. There they improved the treatment of the inmates, her son said. "They took a dilapidated institution and made it into something."
In 1951, the family moved to Maryland when Mr. Tidemand feared there could be a Soviet invasion of Denmark. He became a maintenance superintendent at Towson University. Mrs. Tidemand took a job making circuit boards at Bendix Radio on Joppa Road in Towson. The coupled settled in Hamilton and later lived in Towson.
She learned English in a year and a half and told her friends she mastered the language by watching the Arthur Godfrey television show.
They also owned and sailed a Chesapeake Bay skipjack, the Patty Ann.
"Many times, on weekends at various yacht clubs, National Bohemian Brewery's skipjack, Chesterpeake, would moor next to my parents' boat, and visitors were invited aboard," her son said.
The coupled later moved to Winter Haven, Fla., where they belonged to the Hagar Club and the Scandinavian Club. They were also involved in building a replica of a Viking long ship. Mrs. Tidemand was known for her ability to tell stories and also sang Danish sea chanteys.
She returned to Baltimore seven years ago and lived in Mays Chapel and at Heart Homes in Lutherville.
Services were Wednesday at Hunt's Memorial Methodist Church in Riderwood, where she was a member.
In addition to her son, survivors include two daughters, Lone Azola of Towson and Yvonne Johnson of Atlanta; nine grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. Her husband of 49 years died in 1987.