Children of the Hippies

A symbol of tolerance and openness towards alternative lifestyles, the Freetown of Christiania, Copenhagen also hold taboos and brutal stories, which the inhabitants have successfully hidden from the world. The ideas and dreams were beautiful at the time of inauguration in 1971. The young people who moved in truly believed, that they could create rewarding lives for themselves, and their children built on freedom, imagination, and community. Instead, for many of the children, life was marked by a lack of personal boundaries, by abuse, neglect, anxiety, and feelings of abandonment. The adults imagined that their children had hundreds of parents while many of the children didn’t feel they had any. The adults didn’t believe in the need for outside control such as police or social authorities, and the children suffered the consequences. Now, the first generation of children growing up in Christiania during the happy hippie days, tell their story.