Escape from Norway: A WWII Story & A GIVEAWAY

by Cindy K. Stewart

Reine Fishing village in Lofoten, Norway - Credit Petr Šmerkl, Wikipedia

In a surprise attack, the Germans invaded Norway on April 9, 1940, and quickly secured the capital of Oslo as well as other major cities along the east and west coasts of the country. The underequipped and underprepared Norwegian military fought the Germans in the interior and in the far north but even with the assistance of British troops and ships was unable to withstand the German onslaught. After running from the enemy for two months, the Government, King and Crown Prince of Norway fled to Britain, and the Germans took complete control of the country.

Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Nazis appointed Josef Terboven as the Reich Commissioner, and all of Norway came under his control. Approximately 1700 Jews lived in Norway at the time of the invasion, and about 200 of them had fled from the Nazis in Central Europe. Although Terboven placed restrictions on the Jews and their property, it wasn’t until one year later, in the spring of 1941, that arrests and imprisonment were stepped up, and most of these took place outside of Oslo where the Jews were small in number.

Vidkun Quisling & Josef Terboven
Courtesy of Flikr: The Commons via Wikimedia Commons

In early 1942, Terboven required all Jews to have a “J” stamped on their identity cards and the word “Jew” on their identity papers. Also in 1942, Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian collaborator, was named prime minister, and he and Terboven executed the main persecution of the Jews. In the fall, the Norwegian police arrested the 763 Jews they could locate, including women and children, and transported them by ship to Germany. They were immediately sent to Auschwitz where most of them perished in the gas chambers. 

The Donau - one of the ships used to deport Jews from Norway to Germany
Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Norwegian Resistance had facilitated the escape of about 900 Jews to Sweden where they survived the war as refugees. Hans Mamen was one of those resistance members. Hans grew up on a farm outside Oslo and was a student at the local Lutheran seminary. He learned of the persecution of Norway’s Jews and felt called as a Christian to help protect them. His mission began when a seminary professor asked him to help find a hiding place for a Jewish family who had requested the professor’s help.

Hans established a network of seminary students, other friends, and contacts to assist. Some hid Jews, some shared food and supplies, and a few of them led Jews safely across the border into Sweden. Hans led many rescue efforts, usually taking only three people at a time to reduce the risk of capture. He led his charges through areas of dense forests with few roads and a sparse population. They crossed these difficult areas on foot, often at night. Hans arranged for a Swedish lumberjack who lived just across the border to keep a lantern lit at night so they would know when they had arrived in Sweden.

Three Norwegian commandos at the Swedish border during World War II.
Hans Mamen on the left. Courtesy of Creative Commons via lokalhistoriewiki.no

On another journey, Hans accompanied a mother and her three-year-old son across the country, and then they hiked to the border. He carried the child on his shoulders into the dense forest, and the sudden, complete darkness frightened the child. His cries echoed through across the landscape, and nothing Hans or the child’s mother tried would calm him. With dawn approaching and the threat of their footprints in the snow leading a Nazi patrol to them, Hans feared capture. Finally he whispered to the boy not to wake up the birds, and the child immediately quieted. Once across the border, they enjoyed the sunrise and the opportunity to speak aloud again.

Celia Century, a Jewish refugee from Norway, sits on the deck of a summer
camp in Ronneby Sweden next to a non-Jewish friend.
Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

In December of 1942, the Norwegian police, working for the Nazis, arrived at the Mamen’s farm and demanded to see Hans. His mother explained that he was at the seminary in Oslo. After the police left, she telephoned the seminary, and her coded message was passed to Hans during class—“‘Pack your suitcase’” (Gragg). Hans rushed to the home of a trusted friend and sent a message to his fiancée, Ruth. Although her parents were afraid and didn’t want her to leave, Ruth packed a small bag to escape with Hans.

Hans and Ruth traveled by train from Oslo but disembarked before reaching the border. Hans had arranged for one of his contacts to meet them, and they rode under a tarp in the back of an old truck. They stopped at a safe house; however, Nazi agents were searching the neighborhood. Hans and Ruth climbed back into the truck, and the licensed woodcutter drove them to a border checkpoint where he knew the lone Norwegian guard was loathe to leave his hut at night. Although the woodcutter turned resistance fighter was willing to use his gun if necessary, the truck rolled across the border without incident. Their benefactor didn’t stop until they were far from the border, but when he did, Hans and Ruth climbed out of the truck, fell on their knees, and thanked God for bringing them safely through.

Hans and Ruth married in Sweden and had the first of five children. Before the war ended, Hans finished his seminary studies and assisted the Norwegian resistance by helping Allied agents cross from Sweden into Norway to conduct operations. After Norway was liberated, Hans and Ruth returned home, and Hans served as a Lutheran pastor for many decades. More than sixty years later, he was asked to speak at the new Holocaust Center in Oslo. A tall, bearded Norwegian "greeted him with unusual affection for a stranger." The man identified himself as "the Jewish toddler who decades earlier had quieted down in the dark, snow-covered forest so he would not awaken the birds" (Gragg).  

Villa Grande in Oslo. Site of the Center for Studies of Holocaust and
Religious Minorities and former home of Vidkun Quisling.
Credit: Leifern, Wikimedia Commons

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Sources: 

Gragg, Rod. My Brother's Keeper. Center Street, 2016.

"Norway." Shoah Resource Center, www.yadvahem.org.

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Cindy Stewart, a high school social studies teacher, church pianist, and inspirational historical fiction author, semi-finaled in the American Christian Fiction Writer’s 2017 Genesis contest, and won ACFW’s 2014 First Impressions contest in the historical category. Cindy is passionate about revealing God’s handiwork in history. She resides in North Georgia with her college sweetheart and husband of thirty-seven years and near her married daughter, son-in-law, and four adorable grandchildren. She’s currently writing a fiction series set in WWII Europe.

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Giveaway: Leave a comment below and earn a chance to win Sarah Sundin's latest World War II novel, The Sky Above Us. You can earn another chance to win by sharing this post on social media. The contest will end on Wednesday, 4/3, at 8:00 PM EST. Don't forget to leave your e-mail address and let me know if you've shared on social media.

How an Unassuming Woman Accidentally Made History

Susanna Madora Kinsey Salter

Susanna Madora Kinsey was born March 2, 1860, in Belmont County, Ohio, to descendants of Quaker colonists from England. When Susanna was twelve, her family moved to an 80-acre Kansas farm near Silver Lake. Eight years later, while attending the Kansas State Agricultural College, she met Lewis Salter, an aspiring attorney. The couple married and moved to Argonia, Kansas. In 1883, Susanna gave birth to the first baby born in Argonia. She and Lewis eventually had a total of nine children, although one died in infancy. While caring for her young children, Susanna became active in the local Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party organization. She even got the chance to meet temperance activist, Carrie Nation.

Susanna and Lewis

On April 4, 1887, Susanna was surprised to learn that she had been nominated as a candidate for mayor on the Prohibition Party ticket. Because candidates did not have to be made public before election day, she didn’t know she was a candidate until the polls opened. It turns out that several Argonia men decided to pull a prank and nominated her as a joke, hoping her loss in the election would humiliate the town’s women and discourage them from running in the future. On election day, when the Women’s Christian Temperance Union learned she was a candidate, every one of them abandoned their preferred candidate and voted for Susanna.

The prank backfired when Susanna Salter received two-thirds of the votes and was elected mayor, just weeks after Kansas women had gained the right to vote in city elections. The twenty-seven-year-old woman knew more about politics than her opponents realized. She was the daughter of the town's first mayor, and her father-in-law was Melville J. Salter, a former Kansas lieutenant governor.

Susanna’s year as mayor was uneventful, except for the precedence it set. Press from all over the country debated women in office, sparking objections to “petticoat rule” to a “wait-and-see” attitude. As compensation for her year of service, Susanna was paid one dollar. At the end of the year, she did not seek re-election.

Susanna Salter's home in Argonia, Kansas

The Salter family lived in Kansas until 1893, when Lewis raced in the Cherokee Strip land run and won a plot of land in Alva in Oklahoma Territory. Ten years later, they moved to Augusta, also in Oklahoma Territory, where Lewis practiced law and established the Headlight newspaper. After Lewis’s death in 1916, Susanna moved to Norman, Oklahoma, where her youngest child attended the University of Oklahoma. For the rest of her life, Susanna remained interested in religious and political matters, but she never sought an elected office. 

Susanna Medora Salter died in Norman, two weeks after her 101st birthday. She was buried next to her husband in Argonia. In 1933, a commemorative bronze plaque was placed in Argonia’s public square honoring her as the first woman mayor in the United States. The house she lived in during her tenure as mayor was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Although her term as mayor was uneventful, Susanna made history as the first woman mayor in the United States.

Coming in May--Julia. 

The War Between the States may have ended, but prejudice is still strong among the families journeying together on a wagon

train headed down the Santa Fe Trail.

Julia Scott is traveling to New Mexico with her father and younger brother. Her pa fought for the North in the war where her two older brothers lost their lives. Pa is looking for a fresh start in a new place, but Julia just wants him to be happy again.

Taylor Marshall, a Southerner who fought for the Confederates, is on his way to Colorado to raise horses. He’s attracted to Julia, but her father adamantly forbids them to talk to one another.

Circumstances continually throw Julia and Taylor together, and their attraction grows. Will a forbidden romance bloom? Or will they go their separate ways when the trail splits?

Pre-order now: https://www.amazon.com/Julia-Prairies-Collection-Vickie-McDonough-ebook/dp/B07NYTVY2M

Vickie McDonough is the best-selling author of 50 books and novellas. Vickie grew up wanting to marry a rancher, but instead, she married a computer geek who is scared of horses. She now lives out her dreams penning romance stories about ranchers, cowboys, lawmen, and others living in the Old West. Vickie’s books have won numerous awards including the Booksellers Best and the Inspirational Choice awards. When she’s not writing, Vickie enjoys reading, doing stained-glass projects, gardening watching movies, and traveling. To learn more about Vickie’s books or to sign up for her newsletter, visit her website: www.vickiemcdonough.com

HHH Book Day

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Philip Greslet has worked his whole life for one thing—to be a castellan—and now it is finally in his grasp. But when Avice rebuffs his new lord’s attentions, Philip must convince his best friend to marry the lord against his heart’s inclination to have her as his own.

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The War Between the States may have ended, but prejudice is still strong among the families journeying together on a wagon train headed down the Santa Fe Trail.

Julia Scott is traveling to New Mexico with her father and younger brother. Her pa fought for the North in the war where her two older brothers lost their lives. Pa is looking for a fresh start in a new place, but Julia just wants him to be happy again.
Taylor Marshall, a Southerner who fought for the Confederates, is on his way to Colorado to raise horses. He’s attracted to Julia, but her father adamantly forbids them to talk to one another.

Circumstances continually throw Julia and Taylor together, and their attraction grows. Will a forbidden romance bloom? Or will they go their separate ways when the trail splits?

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Washington State, 1893
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Cheyenne brave Five Kills wouldn’t knowingly jeopardize the peace treaty recently negotiated between his people and the Army. But a chance encounter with the female doctor ignites memories of his upbringing among the whites. Too intrigued to stay away, tension erupts with the soldiers, and Five Kills is injured.

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