Hundreds of refugees walk in Southern Jutland motorway near Padborg in Denmark on Sept. 9, 2015. Danish police said that they have not seized any money or valuables from asylum-seekers since a new law allowing such seizures took effect last month. (Martin Lehmann/AP)
COPENHAGEN — Lise Ramslog was out for a barefoot amble on the warm day last September that Europe’s refugee crisis came to her remote village in southern Denmark.
The 70-year-old grandmother had planned a simple stroll to the bank. What she found in her quiet, coastal community were hundreds of exhausted asylum seekers who had arrived on the ferry from Germany only to be stranded without access to public transportation. Some had begun to walk along the highway in desperation.
Ramslog decided on the spot that she would help: She ended up giving two young couples, a small child and a newborn baby a 120-mile ride in her cramped sedan to their destination in Sweden. “When we crossed the border, they rejoiced and cried,” she recalled.
In another context, Ramslog might be known as a good Samaritan.
But the Danish government has a different term for her: convicted human smuggler.
