Remembering the German occupation

Brookings lodge member to talk about growing up in Norway during World War II

Posted

BROOKINGS – Just as military veterans of World War II are seeing their ranks thinned by time, so too are the ranks of Resistance fighters in those countries that were occupied by the German armed forces. 

While too young to actively take part in the Resistance, Jorleif “Leif” Andol, 88, remembers those who did; and he’ll tell his story at the annual Brookings Sons of Norway Syttende Mai (Norwegian Constitution) program on May 24. The program begins at 7:30 p.m. in the fellowship hall at First Lutheran Church in Brookings and is free and open to the public.

Andol had served as president of the Huron lodge. When it dissolved, he and six other members joined the Brookings lodge, which has about 165 members. 

Born in Norway in 1929, Andol was 10 years old when the Germans invaded in April 1940. They would occupy the country until May 9, 1945. He lived with several other families on a farm at Gjelme in a rural area about 30 miles from Trondheim, a major Norwegian city. 

In the Gjelme area, the occupying German forces oversaw the mining of phosphor and copper for munitions. Additionally there was a hydroelectric plant nearby and valuable farmland and timber.

Hidden radios, illegal newsletters

“Nothing changed overnight,” Andol recalled, looking back on those days nearly eight decades ago when the Norwegian royal family and other government officials evacuated to England and set up a government in exile and an invading army entered and occupied his homeland with 300,000 troops, including the area where he lived. “It took time.”

 “As they came in, there were certain orders they gave,” he explained. “For instance, we weren’t allowed to listen to any radio stations other than the German stations in Norway.

“That didn’t work; so instead they took all the radios. A few hid their radios; of course that was pretty risky stuff. Some of the people who had radios put out small, illegal newsletters.

“We got some news that way. Otherwise on the radio all we got was the German news and the German propaganda. The same in the papers. They weren’t allowed to write what they wanted to; they were censored always.”

One aspect of the war that didn’t touch the farming area where Andol lived was hunger: there was sufficient food for the population.

“We were never short of food,” he said. “We always had what we wanted. In the cities it was a different story; there was a real shortage of food.”

Resistance hampers Germans

Over time the German presence became more noticeable because of the mining of the phosphor and copper. 

“Twenty-five percent of what Germany needed, Hitler needed, came out of that mine, in my community,” Andol explained.

Like other countries conquered and occupied by the Germans, Norway mounted a Resistance movement: the “Milorg” was very active and numbered about 40,000 armed men by war’s end. 

“A lot of the younger men left the country and escaped, especially to England,” Andol said. Some of them later returned to Norway and made up what he described as “special forces.” They played a key role in the Resistance, “in sabotage and they sent information back to England.”

“My uncle, on the home farm, was one of the main contacts,” he added. “They had a tarpaper shack that had been used for timber years ago. And that turned out to be one of their main hiding places.”

But fighting back against the Germans could lead to severe consequences and retaliation.

In fall 1942, following some acts of sabotage, including blowing up a railroad transformer, the area where Andol was living was put under martial law. 

“Because of the sabotage, they picked out 10 people and shot them,” he said.

In all the occupied territories, arguably the most feared units were the notorious German secret state police – the Gestapo. 

“The ‘bad boys,’ that was the Gestapo,” Andol said. “They had a headquarters in Trondheim. That was bad, bad.”

Coming to America

World War II in Europe ended on May 7, 1945. On May 9, the occupation of Norway ended. Andol recalled day-to-day life returning to normal rather quickly, although there were some shortages of necessities such as food; and “it took a long time before (life) got back fully to normal.”

For him, it meant going back to high school, which he had started in 1944. Following the war, he finished high school and in 1949 at 19 years old, he went to visit an uncle in North Dakota.

“I worked on a farm for a couple seasons. And then I went to Fargo and started working there,” Andol said. “Eventually they wanted to expand, so I moved to Huron and started a plant for them there.”

For 60 years he worked at Huron Culvert & Tank, a company that manufactured storage tanks and culverts. He retired about seven years ago.

Initially he had planned to return to Norway after working a couple years; however, in the meantime he was drafted. He served two years in the Army and was a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division.

He became an American citizen in 1954.

Andol’s first wife died about nine years ago. They had two daughters; two grandchildren, a boy and a girl; and a great-grandson. He married his second wife Janis about seven years ago.

Andol will be introduced by Rob Rasmussen of Brookings, who has extensively studied the history of the Norwegian Resistance during World War II and will give an overview of the Resistance and its impact.

Rasmussen has visited the Home Front Museum in Oslo and learned that family members on his father’s side, many of them boys, served in the Resistance and fought the German occupiers.

He met Andol in 1978, when they participated in Ski for Light, a non-profit organization that provides opportunities for cross-country skiing for people who are visually impaired and mobility impaired.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.

Courtesy photo: This wooded, mountainous area offered concealment for the Norwegian Resistance fighters as they sabotaged the Germans during the World War II occupation. The Andol farm can be seen lower right. Upper left is the fjord where an ore melting plant was located.