| Growing
up
| Eva was born in Mosjøen in 1918,
the second of three daughters in a close-knit and respected
family. They moved to Glomfjord, N. Norway in 1920 where
her father, an army captain, became auditor for the
Glomfjord foundry. |
Eva 1918 |
Else ,Eva, Vaar, mother,
and grandmother
|
He died of cancer when Eva was 7 years old. Her mother
remarried in 1931 and the girls got a loving father
who later financed their education and travel around
Norway. “When we children talked about the marriage
to friends we always said that father married us!”,
says Eva. |
Eva’s artistic mother painted, wove, embroidered
and learned brocade painting in 1925 while she was in
Oslo during her husband’s
illness. She was also practical
and held the important position of chief telegraph operator
for the district. Eva and her two sisters Else and Vaar,
often ’helped’ their mother at the telegraph
station – a pastime that later proved useful for
Else in a critical wartime episode.
|
Glomfjord,
situated at the head of a fjord north of the Arctic
Circle, had no land connection to the hinterland at
that time. Bodø, the nearest large town, was
26 hours away by Coastal Steamer; now the 150 kilometres
can be covered in just over 2 hours by road. The history
of Glomfjord is the history of Norway’s development
of hydro-electricity; the task of harnessing the 442
metre high waterfall started in 1918. In 1927 the
production of Aluminium started and because both the
raw materials Glomfjord and finished products had
to be shipped in and out,
Glomfjord became the busiest port in Northern Norway.
|
Glomfjord |
Skiing 1910 |
Life at home
was cultured and serene but nature outside was raw and
brutal. The three sisters learned to ski early and thought
nothing of plodding slowly up a nearby mountain for
three or four hours only to swish down again in 15 minutes:
“we were fantastic skiers and we loved the mountains”
remembers Eva who said that one of the mountain passes,
was named after her first father (Granskaret). |
They were also enthusiastic members of the Girl Guides.
Eva became a troop leader and her most memorable experience
was leading a group of 19 girls from Glomfjord to an
international Guide camp at Mandal in southern Norway.
They travelled by Coastal Steamer, bus and train to
Mandal but on the way back they got a lift on a freight
boat all the way from Mandal to Glomfjord. |
Eva at her confirmation |
Although pre-war Glomfjord was physically isolated,
the inhabitants kept abreast of current events by radio.
Even so, Eva commented that compared to today’s
media flood of information, their limited sources provided
little knowledge of the political realities in Germany
and the rest of Europe. |
It was soon obvious to everybody that Eva
was destined to become a children’s nurse because
from an early age she was always lifting and carrying young
children and babies. As she grew up Eva became a familiar
figure as a helping hand with children around the town.
In 1936 the need for professional training called her to
Oslo where she enrolled at a Domestic Science College. In
those days one had to know how to be a housewife before
beginning to train as a children’s nurse. She qualified
in 1938 and remembers:
“I loved my job as a children’s
nurse, I can think of nothing better than caring for new-born
babies. At that time, some young mothers hired nurses to
help them during the first few weeks after they came home
from hospital. I spent many happy hours in some of the best
houses in Oslo. I learned a great deal”.
The Invasion
Eva was living with her two sisters at Besserud, Homenkollen,
in an apartment with a splendid view over Oslo and the Oslofjord.
On April 8th 1940 the sisters went to bed at their usual
time but the first air raid siren woke them up at 0015.
The electricity was cut off shortly afterwards. The second
alarm sounded at 0430, accompanying the drone of German
aircraft approaching Fornebu airport. The sisters saw the
aircraft from their window and they telephoned the local
newspaper ‘Aftenposten’ to find out what was
happening. The reply was a terse: “This is the real
thing”.
The German invasion of Norway, the sinking
of the Blücher and the delayed occupation of Oslo are
separate stories. For the Gran sisters, with their background
in girl-guide leadership and nursing, the escape of the
Government and Royal Family and the military resistance,
put them in the front line. On the evening of April 9 Else,
as leader of the Girl Scouts Association in Oslo, was ordered
to a Red Cross emergency post near Fagerborg church. Else,
her two sisters and several others volunteers served refreshments
and dispensed comforting words to visitors who were both
afraid and confused. The worst experience was when a convoy
of vehicles thundered by on its way to a local crematorium
with a gruesome cargo of German corpses from the battleship
Blucher.
Next day, April 10, the so called “panic
day” because of rumours that Oslo would be bombed
precisely at noon, thousands of people left their homes
and fled to the countryside. Eva and her sisters had an
uncle who lived in a house at Vettakollen. On ‘panic
day’ he opened his home for the needy and got his
three nieces to assist him. On the way there they met scared
children, women, and whole families whom they took with
them to the warmth and safety of their uncle’s house.
He had a friend who owned a large business in Oslo and Eva
told us; “Uncle Anton went into town with a van and
came back with heaps of good food – sausages, bread
and butter. We put together a meal so that the, by now,
large numbers of involuntary guests didn’t have to
sleep on empty stomachs.Next morning the bomb scare was
over, the overnight guests left and we could get the house
ship-shape again”.
In Action
On April 12 Eva and her two sisters answered a call for
assistance and reported to the Red Cross Hospital with knapsacks
on their backs and skis over their shoulders. They were
given Red Cross armbands and the necessary papers and ordered
to report to the small village of Hov, about 120 kilometers
from Oslo. The Germans had not yet blocked the roads so
on the first leg of their journey they enjoyed the comfort
of a Mercedes. At Guriby in Lommedalen however they had
put on their skis – destination Sundvollen, a steep
climb in snow that was already beginning to melt in the
spring sunshine. Worse than the rotten snow were the German
aircraft that strafed them, probably thinking they were
Norwegian troops. They spent anxious moments diving into
the snow and finding safety under trees. At Sundvollen,
they met a Dr. Fürst from Oslo who drove them to Hønefoss,
eerily quiet and deserted after the evacuation. “The
shops were opened for us so that we could obtain food, medical
supplies, and other necessities” said Eva. Then they
continued, along country roads with sounds of battle on
both sides, with the occasional stop and dive in ditches
in fear of low flying aircraft, to their final destination,
Hov and the nearby Søndre Land Hospital. Dr. Holmsen,
the head doctor reminded them that according to the Geneva
Convention, all combatants, both friend and foe, must be
given the necessary medical assistance.Their task was to
establish a clinic for soldiers of both nations in the empty
community hall.
Conditions were not good. Patients had to be laid on the
floor. The villagers had fled from their homes and farms,
electricity and water lines were cut. Luckily the owners
of the neighbour farm, Sarastuen, had decided to remain.
These kind people provided the clinic with vegetables, whatever
other food they had available and wood for the clinic’s
stove. Medical supplies were meagre and much of the equipment
had to be put together from emergency kits by the ‘personnel’.
‘Personnel’ comprised a young local girl, two
young men - ‘jacks of all trades’, the Red Cross
leader, a young female medical student and the three Gran
sisters. The daily routine was more than enough to keep
everyone busy.
There were other challenges. One day they were given a calf
for food. Who was to butcher it? “You have been to
the school for housewives” Eva was told; “you
do it.” She was practically in tears because she had
only a pocket- knife and had absolutely no idea how to start.
Finally the farmer’s wife took over the job. Fresh
meat was a welcome addition to the menu for the next few
days. The less seriously wounded patients were happy to
help with the small household chores like peeling potatoes,
washing up and cleaning the stove.
As the weeks progressed, the fighting around them intensified
and the number of wounded increased steadily. After one
hard-fought battle a group of 30 badly wounded showed up
– accompanied by a German doctor who tirelessly treated
patients of both nationalities. But many died and the nurses
attended the funeral services. Eva’s voice broke and
tears welled into her eyes as she remembered these sad gatherings,
the terrible wounds, the pitiful conditions and the sheer
waste human life.
Assisting soldiers from both armies was
especially poignant – but it had its lighter side.
One slightly wounded German soldier was laid on a bed without
mattress or pillow. Eva told us that as she bent over him
she thought he said, “Give me a kiss.” “I
was so annoyed that I slapped him across the face and then
felt terrible when a another patient told me that the soldier
had only asked for pillow.” (Kyss = Norwegian for
kiss, Kissen = German for pillow). Another time, when one
patient complained about a German soldier being taken care
of, another Norwegian soldier shouted: “He is just
as good as I am.”
Gradually the Germans gained the upper hand
in the battles against the ill-equipped Norwegian forces.
The telegraph station had been abandoned and Else, with
the experience at her mother’s knee, so to speak,
operated the equipment and relayed messages, many of which
were in code. The doctor in charge of the hospital had warned
them to leave immediately the Germans arrived. One day Else
was working in the telegraph office when she heard the rumble
of German vehicles. She rushed outside and tried to look
inconspicuous. When a couple of German soldiers came up
to the station she pretended she was just a casual passer-by.
A few days later she fell off her bicycle and spent the
next three months in hospital herself.
By Foot from Oslo
Leaving Else in hospital, Eva and Vår left Hov after
six exhausting and challenging weeks. On their return to
Oslo they were penniless, jobless and had had no contact
with their family in Glomfjord for almost two months. They
found Oslo still in a state of uncertainty. The Germans
were trying to keep the population passive but the prevailing
mood was ominous and resistance was increasing. On May 31
the girls decided to go home – just like that. In
sports clothes, stout shoes and wearing their Red-Cross
armbands, they took a tram to the outskirts of the city
and began to walk up the road to Trondheim.
Keeping a careful eye out for German military
vehicles they managed to hitch a few rides and on the evening
of the first day they walked over the bridge at Minnesund.
At Hamar they approached the driver of the train and told
him their story. “Jump in” he said, and they
emerged safely at Lillehammer. “We walked, and walked
and walked – do you realize how far it is from one
end of the Gudbrandsdal valley to the other?” asked
Eva and continued:
“We felt safe in flagging down a post office van –
but it was driven by a German soldier. He didn’t seem
to think there was anything strange in two young women hitching
a ride in the middle of nowhere. He was so busy trying to
talk to us that he didn’t see the car turning out
of a side road – and certainly didn’t stop when
the car clipped the rear end of our van.
We hid and slept in gardens or under trees,
washed in the river, begged food from farms and shops –
you’ve no idea how good cold porridge with sugar tastes
when you’re really hungry. We rode in a hearse but
the driver assured us there was no body. We were even happy
one day to sit in a horse-drawn cart. On the Dovre mountain
plateau we came across a band of Norwegian war-prisoners
working on the roadside. They said we were safe with them
– there was only one German guard and he was reassured
by our Red-Cross armbands. We sat in their trucks and drove
with them to their camp at Hjerkinn. Then we took the spectacular
mountain path down Gauldalen.
Two men in a car stopped and gave us a lift
on the outskirts of Trondheim. From the way they spoke about
the political situation we realized that they were Norwegian
Nazi sympathisers – not very nice men at all. Vaar
began to moan and say that she was not feeling well and
was about to be sick. Fearing for the interior of his new
car the driver stopped, we jumped out – and ran as
fast as we could – not even thanking them for the
lift. After a few minutes we were in the streets of Trondheim
that we knew so well.”
Eva and Vaar had visited their aunt in Trondheim many times
before but never had they arrived so unexpectedly. The aunt,
uncle and two cousins welcomed them warmly and listened
almost open mouthed as the girls related their recent experiences.
The girls were told that there was no chance of them continuing
their journey because the fighting had intensified and the
grip of the invader had become firmer – they were
welcome to stay as long as they wished.
But Eva and Vaar were determined to continue
and next morning at 5 they left silently and started walking
again. Their interim destination: Eva’s godmother
who lived in Mosjøen – some 450 kilometres
north of Trondheim.
“ Namdalen seemed even longer than Gudbrandsdalen.
At night we wrapped ourselves in the blankets we had brought
with us and tried to sleep in the woods. A steady stream
of heavily loaded bombers droned overhead and later we heard
that Bodø had been bombed to smithereens”,
is how Eva remembered this part of the journey.
Tired, weary, and bedraggled after several
days’ toil they finally reached Mosjøen. Eva’s
Godmother was married to the local doctor so they were in
good hands. A fisherman offered to take them along the coast
to Glomfjord but the girls, afraid of mines and bombs, refused:
“I don’t know why. After all the dangers we
had faced you wouldn’t think a sea journey would scare
us – but somehow it did” said Eva. So the doctor
drove them to Hatfjelldal where they hitched a ride on a
railroad maintenance locomotive to Mo I Rana.
Eva continued her story:
“Uncle Anton lived in Mo i Rana and
we stayed with him to plan the last leg of our journey.
The main road was impassable because of the fighting so
he got someone to row us across Langvatn and we continued
on a trail that led alongside the fjord and then up towards
the mountains. In the meantime the fishing boat from Mosjøen
had reached Glomfjord and our parents were told that we
were on our way home by way of the mountain pass from Mo
i Rana. When Uncle Anton arrived back in Mo, he found that
a fisherman named Simon had been sent by our parents to
look for us because a German plane had made an emergency
landing right in the middle of our planned route. Simon
crossed the fjord again in his fishing smack, cruised parallel
to the shore looking for us and went ashore when he reached
the innermost farm. When we got there, and heard the greetings
from our parents we both broke down and cried. When we continued
our journey it was still light. The midnight sun had disappeared
behind a bank of clouds and a gale force wind drove the
snow straight into our eyes. The mountain snow was melting
we were wading up to our hips in slushy snow, and would
never have survived without Simon’s help.”
At one point, a roaring waterfall-fed river
blocked their way. A thick, tree trunk spanned the river
as the only way across. The surface was soaking wet, slippery
and buffeted by hissing spray. Simon showed them how to
cross, sitting on the trunk, and hitching forward keeping
both hands firmly gripped in front. Eva went after Simon.
Then Vaar, but she was so afraid that Simon had to go back
to her and they crossed together with her holding onto his
back. The river was their final obstacle. Shortly afterwards
they arrived at Melfjordbotn, Simon’s home, where
his parents took care of them with food and comfy beds for
the night.
The next day, June 17th, in Simon’s
motorboat, they arrived in Glomfjord and went ashore wearing
the only dry clothes they had – their nightdresses.
They were welcomed by a crowd of people, including a weeping
but happy mother and father. They had travelled about 1500
kilometers in 17 days and counted 17 different means of
transportation.
“We didn’t have a day’s sickness and our
only ‘injury’ was sore feet” was Eva’s
summing up.
Vaar and Eva 1941 |
Northern Norway
at that time was a major battle arena. They could hear
the sound of bombs falling on Bodø and the Germans
arrived to take over the Glomfjord’s important
aluminium plant at the beginning of July. Two years
later Glomfjord was the target of a daring Allied raid
by 12 commandoes who managed to so damage the plant
that production could not be resumed until after the
war. |
Back in Oslo
In January 1941 Eva returned
to Oslo to continue her work as a children’s nurse
and to be with her sister Else who was studying pottery.
In Oslo, conditions were much worse than before; increasing
restrictions, shortage of food and even more uncertainty
concerning the nature of the occupation. After a few months
the whole family moved to Hoyanger where they lived for
two years. By 1942 Eva was leader of the “Sanitetsforeningen”s
kindergarten in Hoyanger but she moved back to Oslo in January
1943 to attend the Barnevernsakademiet. In Oslo she moved
into the apartment of “Aunt Hanna”, a prominent
library director, and friend of the family. Eva was welcomed
to her new home with the warning: “In this house we
ask no questions and tell no tales.” Finding weapons
under a sofa and a refugee Jew in the cellar, Eva quickly
understood the seriousness of this admonition – and
was soon involved in illegal activities herself. (She was
also appointed “boss” of the air-raid shelter
in the basement with the thankless task of ringing the doorbells
of all the apartments whenever the air raid warning sounded.)
Her job was simple but dangerous. One day
each week she was to go to the main library and pick up
a package she would find on the counter. If there was no
package she should just look at some books and then leave.
The packages contained about 30 illegal newspapers and Eva
delivered these to a list of local addresses. The German
occupiers realised that these newspapers were an important
source of moral support for the Norwegian population because
they countered the one-sided news presented in the Nazi-controlled
press. Anyone caught distributing illegal newspapers was
imprisoned, interrogated, often tortured and sometimes executed.
Luckily, Eva was never apprehended.
At the Barnevernsakademiet she found many
friends who sympathised with her own anti-Nazi feelings.
By this time the resistance movement had developed into
an organised but disparate force that operated throughout
the country.
In February 1943, nine intrepid Norwegian
soldiers, under incredibly difficult conditions, blew up
part of the Norwegian Hydro plant at Rjukan in southern
Norway. Rjukan was German’s only source of “heavy
water”, a vital ingredient in the production of an
atomic bomb. This, and later sabotage actions against the
production and shipping of heavy water”, resulted
in the German failure to make the feared, nuclear “ultimate
weapon” in time to change the course of the war.
The men who accomplished the Rjukan raid
became popularly famous as “The Heroes of Telemark”.
In the forests and hills around Oslo there were other “unsung
heroes”; resistance soldiers who reported to London,
who carried out sabotage and who laid plans for a possible
uprising whenever the opportunity occurred. These men, in
turn, were dependent on others to help them with food and
supplies and this was where Eva and her friends at the Barnevernsakademiet
came in. At weekends they would visit a bakery in Majorstuen,
collect bread and other food in their rucksacks, take the
tram to Frogneseteren, strap on their skis and literally
“head for the hills” with their important cargoes.
The “Boys in the Woods” (“Gutta på
skauen” was the popular Norwegian expression for the
resistance fighters at the time,) met their suppliers at
pre-arranged spots deep in the woods where both food and
information were eagerly exchanged.
We asked Eva for her thoughts about the
way people reacted to the occupation:
“It seems to me that while obviously
there were some who supported the invaders, most people
were against them. In both camps there were degrees of commitment
but I think that in a thousand different ways the majority
of the Norwegian population hated the occupation. The feeling
among my friends was a furious anger with the Germans who
had no business being here – they had to get out.
We discussed politics before the war and already then people
had begun to take sides – pro England or pro German.
Most of my friends were Anglophiles and I was all set to
go to England as an “au pair” just days before
the outbreak of the war in 1939. I remember that many Norwegians
were pacifists before the war but most of them changed their
stripes quickly after April 9th.
I hadn’t met any Germans before the
war except for a lady who was married to a Norwegian engineer
at the Glomfjord plant. She had lots of friends but the
war ruined everything for her – she isolated herself
from her friends so as not to compromise them.
My own grandmother studied music in Germany
and my stepfather studied in Dresden – at a time when
it was difficult to study either music or engineering in
Norway. The worst thing about 1939 and early 1940 was the
uncertainty – many people just didn’t know which
side to support.”
In July 1944, as part of her training, Eva
was working at a camp where children, from 2 to 5 years
old were being cared for because of the lack of food and
difficult conditions in Oslo.
One day, as Eva and another student were feeding the children,
two German soldiers burst in. One of them shouted: “Fräulein
Gran, Fräulein Gran”. When Eva identified herself
the soldier said that she was under arrest and that she
must come with them immediately. She protested that she
couldn’t leave the children; they had to be fed and
then changed. She remembers now that she was angry and also
afraid – her father was, after all, in hiding, her
sister Vaar was “somewhere in Valdres” and she
thought of her own weekend food missions. Still she was
adamant about not leaving the children until they were ready
for bed. She was both surprised and relieved when the soldiers
relented somewhat and showed that they were fond of children.
Imprisoned
The soldiers drove Eva to Victoria Terrace – the forbidding
and infamous headquarters of the Gestapo in the centre of
Oslo. She was placed in a cell together with several men
and women and as soon as the guards left, one of the inmates
looked around slowly at each of the others and said to Eva;
“The rule here is that we do not talk – not
even to each other.” From this Eva understood that
one of the “prisoners” could be a “stool
pigeon”. Shortly afterwards she was taken in for questioning
but she was the one who asked first; “Why have I been
arrested?” “You know very well” was the
reply. This exchange became the refrain that was repeated
at the beginning of all future interrogations.
I kept asking why I had been arrested and
saying that I was innocent. They kept asking me whom I had
been helping and where we had been meeting. She was shown
a photograph of a man whom, luckily, she did not know. “What
was the family name of your mother?” was the next
question and Eva answered almost without thinking: “Lund.”
She realised almost immediately that this was wrong –
her grandmother was a Lund but her mother had been born
Devold – and unbeknownst to Eva, Devold was the name
of the man in the photograph. Again, luckily, she decided
not to correct her mistake so as not to appear confused
and disoriented. Later, at Grini, Eva learned the reason
for this questioning when she met several members of the
Devold family. The man in the photograph was one of the
‘men in the woods’ whom Eva had probably met
during her food delivery trips. In the spring of 1944 he
had been shot and killed during the Flaskebekk action. In
his pocket the Germans found a scrap of paper with one word
written on it – “Gran.”
Eva remembered the following weeks vividly:
“All interrogations took place at Victoria Terrace.
We were transported to and from in open-backed trucks fitted
with individual cages. My first trip was on July 1. Next
day I was taken from Grini to the prison at Møllergata
19 in the centre of Oslo. Here I was forced to sit on a
high, hard, straight-backed chair in the corridor. A huge
Alsatian dog sat a few feet away and since I had a natural
aversion to dogs I was terrified and dared not move. After
a while they drove me over to Victoria Terrace again.”
“Two slices of bread, and nothing
to drink was all we were given to last the day during these
interrogations. I went through 15 such days. I was not physically
tortured but was constantly humiliated – like the
time I had to go to the toilet. An armed escort followed
me all the way and stood in front of the open door haranguing
me with a long praise of Hitler and the future of Europe
when the German armies were victorious – and this
was a Norwegian. I was furious – and helpless. Four
men were present at the first interrogation and every time
they urged me to confess one of them held a lighted cigarette
close to my arm, but not close enough to burn. At the following
sessions I was questioned only by the ‘boss’
and his assistant.”
In between interrogations at Victoria Terrace
Eva was interred at Grini, the equally notorious concentration
camp situated on the outskirts of Oslo. The Germans had
taken over Grini shortly after the invasion in 1940 for
political prisoners. Originally designed for 700, the camp
at one stage housed 5400 men and women. Some of these were
already well-known professors, scientists, writers, politicians
and artists; Francis Bull, Einar Gerhardsen, Johan Borgen,
and Arnulf Øverland for example. Others became famous
after the war, notably the Nobel Prize for Chemistry recipient
in 1969, Odd Hassel. By the end of the war more than 19,000
prisoners passed through the gates of Grini.Many of these
were deported to concentration camps in German and never
returned to Norway.
Eva remembers Grini:
“Two German female attendants were in charge of the
women’s section. One if them we called ‘Grandma’
and she was OK – the other was a she-devil. We were
registered with typical German thoroughness, repeating the
same personal information; name, date of birth, where born,
etc., etc., that I was to repeat hundreds of times during
the next three months. Our “home” was a large
room with bunks, seven high, on either side. Mine was the
lowest – with a worm’s eye view of the cockroaches
that infested the floor and walls. Again we were given the
warning not to talk until we had got to know the routines
and other inmates. I met many interesting fellow-prisoners,
from all walks of life, from all parts of the country and
from all occupations and professions. Most of them were
older than I. They watched over the younger inmates and
organised services on Sundays.”
“One day, several unhappy young girls
from Stavanger arrived at the camp, sent because they had
been ’associating’ with Germans. Scarcely educated
and from poor homes, they had no idea of any wrong doing
and could not understand why they had been ‘exiled’
to Oslo. We welcomed them, treated them fairly, and made
them feel at home and soon they were chattering and laughing
like any other teenagers”.
“Otherwise, one day was very much
like another. The male prisoners were responsible for the
food which was in short supply; bread, thin soup, thinner
coffee and occasionally goat cheese. Once in a while they
managed to smuggle in herring and potatoes wrapped in newspaper.
We had to eat with our fingers – all utensils were
handed down or improvised. We women spent our time cutting
up all kinds of material that could be used for making trousers
for the men.
The Gestapo must have decided that I really
did not have any connection with a spy or resistance ring
because my regular trip to Victoria Terrace stopped after
about a month. Then I was moved into a hut with six other
women. Those who had been there longest received packages
from the Red Cross which were shared with all of us. We
spent at least two hours each day lined up on the parade
ground for inspection and counting so the days passed relatively
quickly.The worst memory I have is of September 20. We were
hustled out of bed in the middle of the night and lined
up outside in the usual manner. It was cold and we stood
there for two hours while German officers called out and
separated a large number of inmates, including two from
my hut. Later we learned that they were to be sent to concentration
camps in Germany, fortunately my room-mates came back after
the war. It was terrible – especially to see the younger
ones been chosen – some of them were only boys.”
And for the second time, Eva’s voice
wavered as she brushed away tears from her eyes and was
unable to relate many of the other gruesome episodes she
had experienced at Grini.
When Eva realised that she was no longer
suspected of illegal activities she began agitating for
her freedom so she could return to her studies. With the
help of co-prisoners she wrote a letter to the commandant
explaining that it was important for her to take part in
the forthcoming examinations. A few days later she was informed
that she was to be transferred to Bredtvedt a prison located
on the other side of Oslo. After heartfelt farewells and
many verbal messages promised to be delivered, she was set
free. With her personal possessions in a cardboard soap
box she was driven away in the familiar cage on the back
of a truck. The truck stopped after only a short drive,
the driver unlocked the cage, handed
Eva a green sheet of paper and ordered, “out.”
A confused Eva could read the German “Frei”
on the paper but suspecting some trick she cried “No,
no, I’m to go to Bretvedt.” The driver simply
drove away. Eva stood there, close to the centre of Oslo,
her meagre belongings on the ground and a look of wonder
on her face. Then, amazingly, in one of the small coincidences
that help to make life sparkle, her Aunt Hanna strolled
around a corner and practically bumped into her. Arm in
arm they walked to the apartment at Observatorie Terrasse
6
Eva’s
rooms had been ransacked –almost certainly by
the Gestapo in the search for evidence of her ‘spying’.
In spite of the deliberate destruction and disarray
in the apartment, nothing of value had been taken
– and kr. 200 in cash remained untouched in
a drawer.
After her involuntary absence from school, Eva had
a lot of catching up to do. She spent the remaining
months of the war studying, visiting her parents who
were in hiding near Kragerø, and taking exams.
She became engaged and started a new life in a Norway
at peace. |
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Post-war Years
After settling into a new house, and with her two children
out of the infant stage, Eva felt the urge to pick
up the threads of her professional life – caring for
children – and to developing the skills learned at
the Child Psychiatry course she had taken in 1943 and 1945.
First she became a pre-school teacher at a local kindergarten
and then, in a similar capacity at Rikshospitalet. (The
National Hospital).
The National Hospital, founded in 1811,
was originally a facility for the study of medicine and
the treatment of patients who lived outside Oslo. At the
end of the 19th century several new, specialized departments
were established but a separate clinic for Psychiatry was
built at Vinderen, not too far from the hospital. During
the years after the war, however, it became obvious that
the National Hospital needed its own psychiatric expertise
and a new Psychiatric Department for Children was created
in 1951. The new department had to be satisfied with a basement
location under the leadership of Dr. Hjalmar Wergeland who
had returned from Sweden for the new position.
In the children’s ward upstairs, Eva’s
patients came from all over Norway, with various illnesses
that sometimes kept them in hospital for anything up to
six months. Looking after and teaching these children was
the kind of work that Eva knew, loved, and was good at.
In 1954 she was asked, not surprisingly, if she would consider
taking a temporary position in the comparatively new Psychiatric
Department and not surprisingly, she said “yes.”
In the Psychiatric Department Eva found
that the children completely different from the ones she
was used to: autistic children, children with anti-social
tendencies, hyper-active children and children with nameless
problems that had scarcely been recognised and certainly
not studied in depth. The challenge was first to learn how
to understand the problems and then to help the children
find a better way of living with them. The work could be
dangerous as well as challenging – Eva remembers being
almost struck by a flying knife; “but the team-work
was fantastic, doctors, teachers, parents and specialists
working as one.”
When Dr. Wergeland needed a permanent pedagogue
to replace Eva’s ‘temporary’ position,
Eva applied and got the job. Psychiatry, especially child
psychiatry, was still in its infancy in Norway and the only
specialists were in Oslo. As a result, Eva and her colleagues
began a hectic travel programme, spreading information,
teaching and advising at hospitals and clinics throughout
Norway – and agitating for the establishment of new
psychiatric clinics.. This, in turn, entailed much study
and research on their part as most of the advances in the
discipline came from abroad; from England, the United States
and France. One of the first new approaches that Eva embraced
was to look beyond the child’s disability and concentrate
on its innate, healthy abilities.
In 1955 the organization ‘Save the Children’
in Sweden gave the department a generous gift: a home for
the treatment of children with psychiatric problems. ‘Lille-Sogn’
as the home was called, became a welcome addition in the
struggle to combat children’s psychiatric problems.
The gap in the system was recognition and treatment of the
problems in older children and youths. Not until the sixties
did the authorities first begin to address this problem.
In 1963 the first stage of the government’s plan,
a psychiatric clinic for young people, opened at Sogn, a
close neighbour to ‘Lille-Sogn’. In 1968 the
department at the National Hospital was merged with the
clinic at Sogn and renamed ‘The Childrens Psychiatric
Department, Oslo University. Thus the Government’s
plan for a centralized psychiatric facility was realized
and became the ‘Statens senter for barne-og undomspsykiatri,’
(SSBU). Eva became head of the children’s department.
Throughout these changes Eva and her colleagues maintained
busy schedules travelling around Norway visiting homes and
schools of children who had been patients at the clinic.
“After a while, the facility became a fully-fledged
polyclinic, with psychiatrists, psychologists, teachers,
pre-school teachers, qualified welfare workers, and psychiatric
nurses who were often in training with us.” explained
Eva.
In addition, since the clinic was University accredited,
the task of lecturing to student doctors was also partly
hers. Neither had she neglected her own training and development.
In 1953, a pioneer of modern psychiatry, Dr Nic Waal, had
founded an institute for psychiatric treatment of children
and young people and the improvement of such treatment through
research, development, and teaching. For two years, combined
with a full time job and family, Eva studied at the institute,
soaking up new ideas and discovering new challenges. “What
I learned at Nic Waal’s Institute was phenomenal”,
she told us, and continued; “we could discuss and
analyze actual cases from the clinic and then get specialized
tuition that related to the case.”
Looking back, the thing Eva remembers with most satisfaction
is the ‘play seminars’ that she developed for
adults of all disciplines who were involved in child/youth
psychiatry. Basically the problem was that nobody knew how
to motivate and interest 40 or so children from various
wards. “My idea was to think of the games and pastimes
we all had played as children and recall what we remember
of them, both positive and negative”, said Eva. “Only
adults attended these seminars which occupied 3 hours, one
day a week for four weeks – a total of 12 hours. After
each segment the participants returned to their wards, continued
the games with their children, and reported back to me with
their experiences.” Soon the seminars became well
known and Eva was once more travelling to different parts
of the country to conduct her ‘play seminars’
in clinics, hospitals, and homes.
| A side effect of this was, as Eva’s
daughter said; “her own children always had the
most enjoyable birthday parties” – proof
enough of Eva’s effervescent, playful spirit.This
period wasn’t exactly a party for Eva. In 1965
her husband, who had been intermittently ill for several
years, died after a tragic ski accident in the hills
above Oslo. Eva immersed herself in her work but continued,
with her children, to enjoy summer holidays sailing
from their cabin by the fjord and winter skiing that
had always been an important part of their lives. |
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In 1968 she moved
with her two children to an apartment close by the
clinic at Sogn where; “We had Nordmarka on our
doorstep and were able to enjoy the fresh, open air.
Holidays were more modest than they are these days
and we worked six days a week until 1972. |
At work, life was more hectic than ever. The demand for
psychiatric treatment and information about related illnesses
increased dramatically. Through the ‘Play Seminars’
it was shown that many afflicted children could partially
manage their problems, or at least accept them – and
the support of siblings was often decisive. As Eva’s
lectures became more popular her leisure time diminished
because most of the engagements were in the evenings or
at weekends. Eva says: “I enjoyed my work and felt
that my experience could benefit others. I held several
seminars for teachers and health personnel: ‘Children
in hospital’, ‘Children and fear’ and
‘Children and games’ In spite of the demanding
workload, Eva herself remained fit – she claims that
she is practically immune to all illnesses.
When Eva started her career in the early 60’s, there
were 21 hospitals and clinics for psychiatic patients. When
she retired, more than 20 years later the number had risen
to 37 and 22 of these were for children and young people.
She is satisfied with the development. From being a centralized
institution the children’s psychiatric clinic became
more locally attuned. In her later years Eva was heavily
involved in polyclinic assistance to kindergartens, schools,
and families.” Working with the polyclinic was enjoyable
and I owe a greatt debt to my colleagues for their help,
support, and friendliness throughout the years.”
Just before her retirement, at 67, Eva moved
to a cosy retirement apartment at Nordstrand, close to where
her children and grandchildren live. Summing up, Eva is
satisfied:
”My own parents lived into
their 90’s so for many years my sister and I spent
much time looking after them. My sister Vaar died suddenly
of a heart attack in 1991 and Else died in 2005. Retirement
is good and meaningful – I enjoyed walking in the
mountains until quite recently. Now I can walk from my apartment
to visit my daughter and I have close contact with the rest
of the family. I have every reason to be thankful for my
life which has been eventful and satisfying”.
Else and Geoff Ward
Asker, Sept. 13, 2006
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