Another Man’s Shoes Sven Sømme with an Introduction by Ellie Sømme 1 © Ellie Targett 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The right of Ellie Targett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ISBN 978-0-9549137-3-1 Published by Polperro Heritage Press Clifton-upon-Teme Worcestershire WR6 6EN United Kingdom [email protected] Cover design by Steve Bowgen Printed in Great Britain by Orphans Press Leominster HR6 8JT 2 Foreword Another Man’s Shoes vividly captures the atmosphere of life in occupied Norway during WW2. Lovers of nature and the free outdoors life, Norwegians were never going to be willingly oppressed. In this moving account of the courage, determination and self-sacrifice exhibited by the Norwegian resistance movement, I found a timely reminder of how important it remains to oppose tyranny and dictatorship. Ray Mears 3 CONTENTS Introduction 9 Sven’s Story 23 Chapter 1 Occupation 25 Chapter 2 Things Begin To Happen 35 Chapter 3 The Victorious Wehrmacht 45 Chapter 4 The Germans Take Over 59 Chapter 5 We Start Afresh 73 Chapter 6 An Illegal Newspaper 77 Chapter 7 A Friend Pays A Visit 87 Chapter 8 Secret Work 94 Chapter 9 Thin Ice 103 Chapter 10 The Crack 119 Chapter 11 Events Unfold 130 Chapter 12 Under Arrest 137 Chapter 13 The Escape 158 Chapter 14 Across The Mountains 172 Chapter 15 More Mountains 186 Chapter 16 Respite 212 Chapter 17 Onwards To Sweden 234 Epilogue 261 Iacob’s Story 269 4 Introduction The wave of emotion hit me and for a moment I held back. Then I let the tears fall. “Pappa’s shoes,” I whispered. As the room fell silent I looked at Selma, standing in front of me. “Pappa’s shoes,” I whispered again. In her sunlit sitting room with our new-found friends and the waiting journalists gathered around I hugged her. This courageous old lady had kept the shoes for over 60 years, worn and with the laces still tied they bound us together; they had even survived the fire which engulfed her home ten years earlier and which was still too difficult for her to talk about. They were the shoes Pappa wore when the German commandant had said: “You’ll be shot for this, you know that don’t you, you’ll certainly be shot.” The shoes he wore when he was handcuffed and marched with an armed guard through his home town of Molde. The shoes he wore when he escaped from the ship and walked past the armed German guards with a friendly wave. And the same shoes he had worn when he made his way through the snow to the small community of Isfjorden where a young girl and her friends had risked their own lives to offer him help. 5 “You can’t go into the mountains in those shoes,” Selma’s brother Andre had said to my father. “I have a new pair of mountain boots, we can swap.” Selma had said in her letter to me three weeks earlier: ‘I have a present for you’. And here I was with my sister Yuli, brother Bert, my son Oliver and Yuli’s friend Linda with Selma and her family and the waiting journalists. Selma gave a little talk while we ate the cakes and drank the coffee she had prepared. She spoke of her work in the Norwegian resistance during the war and of the help they had given to escapees trying to reach Sweden, my father being one of them. And with her voice breaking with emotion she told us about the fire that had destroyed her home. Then she crossed to the old piano standing in a corner and, giving herself a note, she sang a hymn to us, in her still strong, beautiful voice. We listened in silence, and then she said: “I have a present for you”. * To my shame, I didn’t read my father’s account of his escape until nearly 20 years after his death from cancer in 1961. I was busy with my family and work and there was always another book to finish reading first. Mum had mentioned it a few times and it was one of those things ‘I must do’. And so time had gone on, and I remember when I first picked it up I read as far as his arrest and then it took me another six months before I could finish it. Silly really. I knew he had survived, I was born long after the war but somehow I feared for him even though I knew. I grew up with the story, knew that my father was a hero (aren’t all fathers?) but like all small children I was busy with friends and with school. 6 We lived on the West coast of Norway just outside the small market town of Molde where my father had also grown up. His father had been the local doctor who ran the hospital from 1920. Pappa was the youngest of five: Ingrid, Iacob, Knud, Helene and him, Sven. When he was born in 1904 his family lived close to the town of Lillehammer in the eastern part of Norway. His father, Iacob Dybwad Somme (1866-1923) was one of the founding physicians at the Mesnalien Sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis. The fresh forest air of the area was part of the cure. Patients took daily walks in the forest, or spent several hours on the terrace every day, even when the temperature fell below zero and they had to be covered in sheepskin blankets. The sanatorium was known for its high quality and comfort. According to Dr. Sømme, nobody should reduce their standard of living because they were unlucky enough to get tuberculosis. Of the five brothers and sisters, Iacob was perhaps the most involved with the Norwegian resistance during the Second World War. As head of intelligence for Milorg, the military organization of the resistance movement, he developed methods for espionage, and had important messages sent by radio to Britain or by courier to Sweden. He was arrested in October of 1942 and spent nearly 18 months in prison. His New Year’s Eve speech to his fellow prisoners on the 31st December 1943 became famous [see Iacob’s Story]. It was full of hope for the nation’s future freedom but, tragically, he was taken out with six other prisoners on the 2nd March and shot in reprisal for the bombing of the heavy water by the resistance at Rykan. Sven’s sister Ingrid was also engaged in resistance work during the war, but had to leave for Sweden in 1942. In Gothenburg she was active in organizing the so-called Norway aid. Large quantities of 7 food were sent to Norway as a supplement to the strict rationing enforced by the Germans. She also collected and sent supplies for the Norwegian resistance movement through secret ship passages. Sven’s eldest brother, Knud, was a civil engineer and spent most of his career working in paper mills and cellulose factories. During the war he too was involved with the resistance and played an important role in helping Sven escape in 1944. As a result he received a warning from the resistance that he may be wanted by the Germans; he knew too much and would be subjected to torture if he was arrested. He and his family were ‘invited’ to flee and subsequently met up with Sven at the refugee camp in Sweden in August of that year. Although Sven’s youngest sister, Helene, did not participate in the resistance movement, she supported Ingrid and her three brothers in their work. They would often meet at her house, which on some occasions also served as a refuge for people on the run from the Gestapo. * A typical Norwegian, my father Sven loved the mountains and the fjords and would spend his holidays skiing, swimming, fishing and hunting and studying the wildlife. He became a marine biologist, just like his elder brother, Iacob, and travelled to England in the early 1920’s to study. There he met my English mother, Primrose Tozer. She was just seven and he was a young man of 20 but she loved him with the innocence of a child. He was such fun to be with and, like her, he loved the animals, the insects and the flowers and birds. They were to meet again after the war when he was already married and she had lost her fiancé, Frank. Sven’s 8 marriage to Olaug, also a marine biologist, was one of convenience rather than love. They were friends and they married with the understanding between them that if either should meet someone else and fall in love they would be free to marry. And when Sven met Primrose again Olaug agreed to the divorce. They married in the spring of 1950 and I was born two years later. We moved to Eiksmarka on the outskirts of Oslo and two years later Bertram arrived followed by my sister Yuli in 1956. My father, who was by now working for the Norwegian government as the fishery inspector for Norway, bought a beautiful old house that was in great need of repair on the outskirts of a small village near Molde.