There are certain stories and narratives that you only come across once you live in the country in which they once happened in. Then when you slowly understand the peculiarities and then when you can actually speak and read the language of its people. Then you find frightening but also absolutely charming articles and ask yourself more often why you have never heard of this or that topic before and why there is so little to be found in English about it.

Little seems to be known of what happened in Norway during the Second World War. How were Jews treated, how did Germans treat the Norwegian people. What happened here between 1939 -1945. How much suffering did we Germans bring onto this wonderful country? Can we therefore try to understand how this nation treated its women who had fallen in love or had children with German soldiers? 

Do you know what happened in Narvik? Have you heard of Jan Baalsrud, or the Norwegian resistance in general. Did you know that Norway send parcels to those Norwegians kept as POWs in Germany. Or have you heard of the Tyskerjentene, Lebensborn and Tyskerbarn,  the  Berg camp outside Tønsberg, or the Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling?

You have not? Well, then you will find more about it here. 

As part of my Demmin Novel project, I have already read about the stories around the Tyskerjentene, but during that time I also came across other topics that I would like to shed more light on, because I think that many people feel the same way as I did, and have, just like I never heard of these stories in the news or in their history classes.

I will therefore use this page to draw attention to these Norwegian stories by translating Norwegian newspaper or research articles. I choose this  way of translating deliberately as I do not want to change the mood or content of the topic and reproduce it "as Norwegian as possible".

So what you will read here are mostly translations of original articles from the Norwegian media, Norwegian researchers and recognized journalists. All of whom have given me permission to translate their work.