Britta's story.a dossier on Tvind, Humana, Campus California TG, Planet Aid and IICD

Tvind - seen from the inside

By Britta Rasmussen

I joined Tvind in 1976, because I had a very strong desire to do something in order to fight for a better world instead of just sitting around in left wing organisations at the university and just talk about it.

In the western part of Jutland something new and exciting was happening. The people at Tvind were building a gigantic windmill in order to prove that nuclear power should be banned from Denmark. People travelled in old buses from Denmark to Asia, where they learned about the conditions of the poor of the world by living with the poor people of the villages.

I heard about a fantastic offer The Teachers Group had. For 7 months we should learn carpentry/masonry/plumbing etc by building some new school houses at Tvind, because the Travelling Folk High School was expanding quickly in those years. After that we should prepare ourselves for a travel to South East Asia, which lasted 3 months. After returning home we should give lectures and write books about what we had learned. And everything was free. We should only pay with our labour. So I quit my studies, gave away my books and records and joined Tvind, 22 years old.

The world was out of order in 1976 with the always existing threat of a nuclear war, tension between East and West, massacres of innocent civilians, apartheid, dictators and military regimes. At Tvind we identified ourselves with our heroes and comrades of arms, the guerrillas of Basque, Palestine, Southern Africa and South America. By building the schools we supported the fight for freedom for all suppressed people of the world. We were told by the leader of Tvind Mogens Amdi Petersen, that we were "the flowers of all Danish Youth" - we understood that it was essential to keep up the good work.

Alone man could not do anything against all the misery in the world. Our only chance was to join The Teachers Group and together continue to build new schools from which new students could travel to the Third World, see the misery and realise that they too had to do something . The Teachers Group should grow and grow. It was the only way to avoid a gigantic nuclear war, which would destroy all existing life.

During 9 years I worked at Tvind, at first as a student and later as a life long member of The Teachers Group. At first I worked with children from the age of 11/2 to 14 at the Free School at Tvind. The parents of the children were travelling either as students or teachers at The Travelling Folk High School. For 3 months they did not see each other. Later I worked with monkeys, lions, camels and criminal youths at a small zoo Christianshede Mini Zoo close to Silkeborg in Jutland, Denmark After that I was cook at the school Ake Pecha in Virginia, USA, where 40 more or less criminal youths were living.

In The Teachers Group it is not accepted that every man or woman is a unique being, that we all have weak and strong sides, that we are different individuals and all able to get good ideas. In The Teachers Group it was only the plans and ideas of the leader Mogens Amdi Petersen, that were realised.

If an ordinary member of The Teachers Group approached the leader with her own ideas she was insulted and jeered at for trying. Two seconds after the scorned and ridiculed member crept out of the door Amdi Petersen launched the very same idea himself pretending it was his own.

To the ordinary members of the Teachers Group these things are not known - we were let to believe that Amdi Petersen was a genius - that the plans he made were the very best - if they failed it was because of teachers not living up to their best.

As a member of the Teachers Group you are able to perform any job, without any other qualification than being a member of the Teachers group. You are not allowed to say I cannot do it, if you say so it is because you do not give yourself 100 % for the cause. Then you are a lousy comrade. And this you will be told by the leaders in front of a lot of other members of the Teachers Group, so of course you try to do better than your best.

At all times you have to anticipate the moves of your students and if they do get away at 3 o'clock in the morning, steal your neighbour's car and rob some stores in the nearest town, it is your fault, you did not do your best.

I did not like conflicts and tried to become friends with my students. At all times we worked very hard and just when you were about to reach the goals that you had been told by Amdi Petersen, he changed them, so you had to run even faster.

In the beginning when we had bought the zoo we were told by Amdi Petersen that the zoo was supposed to be a money earning business - like an ordinary zoo. None of the teachers at the zoo knew anything about lions, monkeys, snakes, bears or about running a business, but we tried our best and worked very hard. The fences were old and rusty so many animals ran off and one night somebody had broken the lock of the lion cage. We were told by Amdi to have the lions killed for safety reasons. The zoo was open to the public and in the weekends the students from the other Tvind School came visiting and stayed the weekend. We had to take care of the students while their normal teachers went to Builders Weekend at other Tvind Schools. We were very busy.

But suddenly after two years he apparently changed his mind and sent us 3 Danish students, who could not be placed in normal schools. Now we had to run the zoo and take care of the students, without being educated to either and without being asked if we would like to do it. The leaders bought another house in the village for the students and sent us 7 Swedish Youths who all sniffed glue. They terrorised the other students and the teachers totally. We were all afraid of them. They occupied the first floor of the house and did not want to participate in any program. Nobody ever criticised the leaders for sending so many impossible students to us - it was our fault that it did not work out because we did not work hard enough.

Two or three times during the 9 years I ran off to visit my parents without permission, because I was so tired and had to sleep, but I always returned after a good nights sleep. I was a part of a struggle and would not give in. I thought that some of the leaders were too stupid and thinking too much about the good of conflicts and other Tvind principles, but I still thought the world of Amdi.

At the large meetings of The Teachers Group I managed to keep my head very low and not attract any attention from the leaders. During the years at Tvind I have always kept in touch with my family and visited them with students and alone several times a year. They said to me, that they supported what I was doing as long as I was happy. They visited the schools and were only shown the good sides like all other outsiders. We never told anybody about our problems.

In 1984 I was told by the leader of the school in Virginia that I could not go home and visit my mother who suddenly had discovered that she suffered from breast cancer. I was shocked and shaken. The leaders said that I would leave The Teachers Group if I was allowed to travel to Denmark. It had never crossed my mind - I only wanted to be with my mother.

After a lot of phone calls across the Atlantic Ocean and discussions with the leaders I stole my passport from the office and hitch hiked at 4 o'clock in the morning to Norfolk. When I reached New York I phoned home and my mother wired money for the plane ticket.

At leaving The Teachers Group I was 3 months pregnant with my daughter, but I did not know for sure. If I had waited another day at the school in Virginia I should have gone to the annual medical examinations where they would have discovered the pregnancy. Other teachers at the school were forced to abortion. The members of The Teachers Group could not waste their precious time with having their own children.

My daughter was born in march 1985 and from this moment my life changed completely. She was the most important person in my life. When my daughter was two months old my mother died, but she had been very happy to become a grandmother.

After leaving The Teachers Group I only had my daughter and my family. Of course I missed the nice members of The Teachers Group, but when you have left you are a traitor and they do not know you any more even though you have spent many years together.

First I had to get an education, find new friends, a job. Then I had to find out what had happened in the world in the years I had been gone. We had had all information about the world from Amdi Petersen, because we stopped reading newspapers in 1978, and I realised slowly that we had been deceived. The situation in the world was not like he had told us. He had for instance claimed that the fascists were about to take over the power in Denmark in 1979. We had to go home to our parents and burn all old pictures of former friends and family, so that nobody could trace us if we had to go under ground.

I realised that The Teachers Group is a sect - just like Moon Movement, Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientology. There is no difference.

In 1994 I started writing down all the stories from my time in The Teachers Group and to reconstruct the years from the letters I had send to my parents, sister and grandmother. It was a great relief to get it all written down - I have probably forgotten the worst things - many friends helped me to correct the language and criticise it and finally a very brave publisher accepted the book.

I can strongly recommend the method of writing down everything, it is very good therapy and others may learn from what you have experienced. If you would like to tell me your story  britta.rasmussen.aarslev@get2net.dk

In 1997 and 1998 a group of former members of The Teachers Group have met with our families. This has been very good, but some former members are still afraid to meet with more than two people and they get sick just thinking about and hearing the name Tvind, because of what they have experienced there. They need help from a professional to get on with their lives.

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