View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

It’s coming around again. The date. The date that changed us forever. Even me. I wasn’t born yet. But then, aren’t we all connected to those who came before us? No person is an island. No epoch stands alone. Each twig on a family tree is linked to the branch from which it sprouts. Each historical event has its cause in a previous one.

When I look back to the 9th of April 1940 and do the math, I am amazed at the ages of the main actors. Not the most important people in the war, but my family. The ones who shaped me. The ones who were changed by this date forever. My mother was not yet 16, the middle girl in a family of five daughters. My father at 18 was not yet done with high school and was to be the first person in his family to go to college in the big city.

And my morfar was only 51; a military officer. A man shaped by his parents; orderly and reliable, he felt it his duty to record what happened that fateful day and the years that followed. That is, he wrote it all in his dairy until the Nazis came and took him away to prison in Germany where he would sit for three long years.

The signs of war were there, of course. Neville Chamberlain had tried to negotiate with Hitler to no avail. War was inevitable. So my grandfather thought, but his superiors disagreed. Hadn’t Norway escaped being involved in the “War to Stop All Wars” just a few decades earlier? My grandfather went home that night of the 8th of April, even though he thought it unwise. But he put the phone next to his bed. And, as he had anticipated, it rang at 4 AM. He was to take the train back to Oslo and report for duty immediately. Nazi warships were sighted coming up the Oslo fjord.

Everyone was unprepared for war. The Norwegian government and the royal family were quickly sent north into hiding. The defense of Norway was weak. But as the warships approached, an army of volunteers sprang into action. At first, everything was unorganized and random. But Norway was a country of fjords, mountains and forests. Sabotage was as easy as blowing up bridges ahead of the Wehrmacht soldiers.

One goal for the Germans was to capture the city of Narvik in north-western Norway. It was an important port and the Allies knew that it might be a target in case of war, so English, French and Polish soldiers were stationed there. They joined forces with the Norwegians and a huge battle ensued, which they won! The first victory of the Allies in the war and the first major defeat for Germany.

It took the huge German army two whole months to control little Norway. But the Norwegian military never conceded defeat. My grandfather led the delegation to the negotiating table and remembered the face of his German counterpart when he delivered the letter that explained that even though the Nazis now had control over Norway, the Norwegians hadn’t capitulated. 

Therefore, King Haakon the 7th and his cabinet were sent to England from which they declared themselves as the only legal head of Norway. Meanwhile, for five long years, Quisling spearheaded a brutal Nazi regime. But, due to the fact that the army hadn’t surrendered, the Nazi government was not a legal one. And the underground that sprang to life as a result of the occupation, was brave and creative. Among their most daring deeds was the destruction of the factory where the Nazis were developing the Atomic Bomb.

And after five long years of occupation when saying the wrong word could land you in a concentration camp, and when the stores were bare of food and clothing, and one third of Norway was burnt to the ground, victory came. People married and had babies and rebuilt their country with common goals for the welfare of all.

As a child of my parents, I learned to work hard for what I wanted. I learned that we achieve more when we work together as a community. And I learned never to take freedom for granted and to be aware of politics and to vote.