In the now abandoned Haugland farm on the island of Hersya, Jan Baalsrud was given shelter and food for the first time. P.O.Box 434, 8001 Bod, Storgata 69, Troms Jan Baalsruds 1943 escape from Nazi-occupied northern Norway is the stuff of astonishing individual courage an almost bottomless will to survive but also a larger kindness and humanity. Alfred A. Vik), while Jan Baalsrud escaped to Sweden. Passing over the mountain was critical to his escape, but he was ill-equipped for such a venture. Jan Baalsrud, a Norwegian commando in WWII. The only survivor and wounded, Baalsrud begins a perilous journey to freedom, swimming icy fjords, climbing snow-covered peaks, enduring snowstorms, and getting caught in a monstrous avalanche. Together, he and the old man stared out at the valley where, 44 years earlier, he had staggered, snow-blind, after an avalanche, making his way to the safety of Marius's farm. Were working to restore it. Over the next nine weeks, Baalsrud was the subject of a nationwide manhunt by the Germans. Legendary Norwegian veteran of WW2, whose fantastic escape from the Germans across 200 kilometres of rugged terrain and through snow and blizzards, got himself across the border to neutral Sweden. The churchyard in Manndalen is situated in the heart of the village, while the trip to Baalsrudhula starts from the summer dwelling in the Manndalen valley, which is where the road ends at the top of the valley. He was put in the care of some Sami (the native people of northern Fenno-Scandinavia). Jan Baalsrud was born on December 13, 1917 in Oslo, Norway. Before he died on December 30, 1988, he was moved to a rehabilitation centre near Oslo that his own donations and support had helped to create. The young soldier was frightened and freezing. In 1941, Baalsrud reached Great Britain after having travelled through the Soviet Union, Africa and the US. As if all this wasn't enough, an avalanche threw him down the mountainside, leaving him concussed and partially buried in snow. Espen Alnes Journalist. He wandered in a snowstorm for three days. At the end of March 1943, Jan Baalsrud and 11 other intelligence officers from Kompani Linge and crew were sailing to Troms on the MS Bratholm to organise teams of saboteurs in occupied Norway. imported from Wikimedia project. Are and Kjellaug Gronvoll outside the barn where their father's family hid Baalsrud in a loft. Jan Sigurd Baalsrud, MBE (December 13, 1917 in Kristiania, Norway - December 30, 1988 in Kongsvinger, Norway) was a commando in the Norwegian resistance trained by the British during World War II. stated in. Their mission that March was to establish a presence near the northern port city, Tromso, where they would sabotage anything the Germans were using to fortify the Axis troops on the Russian front. Baalsrud var utdannet geodetisk instrumentmaker. She was 10 when Baalsrud tore through Toftefjord. This is where Baalsrud's story loses all recognisable shape. On our journey, he allows that he may be drawn to the story less because of the blood connection than because of a certain awe that some men his age often come to feel about those who fought in the war. In late March 1943 25-year-old Norwegian commando Jan Baalsrud, three other Special Operations Executive officers and a crew of eight sailed northeast from the Shetland Islands aboard the fishing boat Brattholm.The four-man team was to recruit resistance members in far northern Norway with an eye toward sabotaging enemy installations. Slowly, the Gronvolls brought Baalsrud back to life. Their fishing boat, the Brattholm, carried a secret cargo of bombs and explosive devices. Norway's Svalbard Global Seed Vault is, by its very Quick: What time is it? She remembers the sound of machine-gun fire outside her window. They were found in the mountains in the following summer after being used as a milk sledge, and given to the collection. There is Baalsrud's gun, the snub-nosed Colt, which Baalsrud's brother had given to a museum near Oslo before it was transported back to Furuflaten. reconstituted family advantages and disadvantages; . Source: Flickr.com/trondheim_byarkiv (CC BY 2.0). The lone survivor of an ambush, he survived an avalanche, severe frostbite and snow blindness, having to amputate his own toes, and being relentlessly pursued by Germans for nine weeks before being whisked to safety in Sweden by locals. From Kilpisjrvi, in northern Finland, Baalsrud was collected by a Red Cross seaplane and flown to Boden. In a 2016 interview with the New York Times, Dagmar Idrupsen recalled that day more than 72 years ago, saying that Baalsrud was ice cold and his uniform was frozen solid. Suffering from snowblindness and frostbite, more than sixty people of the Troms District risk their lives to help Baalsrud to freedom. Baalsrud looked the 10-year-old girl squarely in the eye and declared that if she ever told a soul that shed seen him, everyone she loved would almost certainly be killed. After this journey, the villagers left Baalsrud in a 6-foot by 9-foot shed with some supplies, intending to return in a few days. At the end of the war, he returned to Norway to witness his country's liberation first-hand. Now unable to walk unaided, he wondered if he would be best to end his suffering and ease the risk to those helping him. "I can tell you something, youngest son of Marius," he said. A map of Baalsrud's journey. We therefore travelled around the Lyngenfjord to see where it all happened. richard matvichuk wife. VIAF ID. Are, just a teenager, had to ask the great man a question: of all the homes in the valley, how did he find his way here? He turned up toward the hill, planted one bootless foot in the snow and ran. After a long struggle to learn to walk without his toes, Baalsrud eventually was sent to Norway as an agent at his request. Norwegian Independent Company 1 was one such unit, and is better known as Kompani Linge after its leader, Captain Martin Linge. This particular effort, however, was a complete failure. ANMELDELSE: Filmen "Den 12. mand" fortller den autentiske historie om Jan Baalsrud, der i 1943 undslap tyskerne og overlevede mere end to mneders flugt under ufattelige og umenneskelige forhold i Nordnorges vinter. $0.00 $ 0. SOLUND (NRK): 1. juledag er det premiere p den nye filmen om krigshelten Jan Baalsrud. A further snowstorm entombed him for another four days. But the frostbite had taken hold, and Baalsrud was no longer able to walk on his own. Source: Flickr.com/kimberlykv. The teacher made it in pieces, and it was assembled on the other side of the fjord. A memorial to Kompani Linge in Scotland. Mountainous terrain on the Norway-Finland border. image. The Germans opened fire, sinking the dinghy, forcing all the men overboard into the freezing Norwegian water. Gjennom 5 episoder fortelles Baalsrudhistorien p en ny mte og s sannferdig som vi kjenner den i dag. The story was later told in British author, View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro. A German patrol boat attacked their ship. Without realising it, he was climbing an almost 900-metre mountain. Audible Audiobook. Vidkun Quisling (center) at a Nazi party event in Norway, 1941. Thank you! One lonely day inside the cave, he took out his pocket knife again and amputated the rest of them. A 30 minutes audio programme by Jim Mayer retracing Jan's route, including interviews with some of those who helped him escape. He would have swam silently to a number of seaplanes at the Bardufoss air base and planted magnetic limpet mines to destroy them. Haug is among the many Norwegians of his generation who grew up on the tale of Baalsrud's escape. "No one else knew about him," Haug says. On the other side of the fjord, which Jan Baalsrud reached on 12 April after being taken across the water, is a small basic cabin with no heating, ironically named the Hotel Savoy. Eventually, traveling by reindeer sleigh, with his pursuers now hot on his tail, he made it through Nazi-occupied Finland to Sweden. Soaked, freezing, and missing one of his boots, he staggered up the beach and hid in a ravine. Marius came to visit and meant to come back again, but a storm delayed him for another five days. The boat was discovered; three of them were shot and eight arrested and later executed in Troms. 0 references. Baalsrud was a 25-year-old son of an instrument maker who escaped his country after the German invasion in 1940 and returned three years later as a saboteur. Their son Are recalls standing with Baalsrud outside their house, next to the barn where he once hid for days. Jan is the only one out of twelve resistance fighters to escape . richard matvichuk wifeinternational service dog laws. His eyes frozen shut, gasping for air, he became so disoriented he couldn't tell if he was ascending or descending. As a soldier drew close to his position, Baalsrud drew his snub-nosed Colt revolver and shot him dead. The war and the occupation aren't prominent parts of the national identity the way they once were, yet up in the fjords there are signposts marked with a red letter B that are left unexplained to hikers. He had been bold enough to swim in the same icy waters that they had crossed by boat. Howarth, a journalist and Royal Navy officer, wrote We Die Alone based largely on the Norwegian military report on the escape that Baalsrud filed during his recovery and interviews with Baalsrud himself. The trail is easy to follow, almost free from rocky sections and with only short stretches of bog. These skis enabled him to move more quickly, but a sudden blizzard caused him to veer off course. Instead, in a remarkably co-ordinated effort, many in the village came together to help harbour the fugitive and get him on his way, all without the Germans noticing. Worse, he didnt have a plan. Escaping the Nazis, Norwegian commando Jan Baalsrud swam across a fjord, was buried in an avalanche, and had to amputate his own toes. You've probably heard about the Norwegian minority who welcomed the Nazis Vidkun Quisling's name became a well-known synonym for traitor after his outspoken support for Hitler landed him a position as head of state. English Wikipedia. The story of Jan Baalsruds escape through occupied Northern Norway in the spring of 1943 has something of the improbable about it. Jan Sigurd Baalsrud, MBE (13 December 1917 30 December 1988) was a commando in the Norwegian resistance trained by the British during World War II. A few framed black-and-white photos of Baalsrud's earlier visit in the 1950s, during production of Ni Liv, hang on the wall of the parlour. We will update Jan Baalsrud's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible. EVELYN WATSON, JAN BAALSRUD MARRY Dec. 28, 1951 The New York Times Archives See the article in its original context from December 28, 1951, Page 14 Buy Reprints View on timesmachine TimesMachine. Throughout 12th Man, Baalsrud is doggedly pursued by Kurt Stage (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a member of the Gestapo whose ashen face suggests the man has seen a ghostand, indeed, he spends most of the film chasing one.His peers, convinced of Baalsrud's death, look at him as if he were mad. As the Germans opened fire on the dinghy, Baalsrud dove into the frigid Arctic water and swam to shore. Hotel Savoy is situated off the E6 just north of the boundary between the municipalities of Storfjord and Kfjord, 14 km north of Skibotn. From here, it is a 4-kilometre walk to Toftefjorden. To Dagmar and her family, Baalsrud's escape represents the moment idyllic childhood and World War II collided in the middle of her kitchen. There was the father, still mourning the loss of his young son, who rowed Baalsrud in a dinghy through rocky waters in the middle of the night, avoiding German sentries, to deposit him on another shore. Dagmar's aunt sent a small boat to fetch them to her own place across the fjord. He didn't stay long, though he knew he had to keep moving so he didn't endanger the innocent people who came to his aid. Baalsrud was appointed honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire by the British. That man promptly reported the conversation to the Gestapo. All I can hear is the howling of the wind, blasting between the planks of wood. Jan Baalsrud was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway and moved with his family to Kolbotn in the early 1930s. kinci Dnya Sava esnasnda Nazi igali altndaki Norve'te direniin simgesi olan komando Jan Baalsrud'un '12th Man' adl filme dahi konu olan destans hikayesi. Eventually, the family returned and moved him to another town, where he waited for over two weeks in a cold, dark, cave in the Skaidijonni Valley. During two months in which he attempted to escape into neutral Sweden, he was buried in an avalanche, amputated his own frostbitten toes with a penknife, battled starvation, went snowblind and groped around until he accidentally bumped into an empty cabin where he took refuge, and was under constant threat of capture and execution. Slivers of light beam through the cracks. After three days of walking, he found the tiny village of Furuflaten, and by a great stroke of luck, the home of a resistance member there. He was 71 years old. Baalsrud knew the fate of Norway didn't hinge on whether he made it out of the country alive. They mark a path that begins more than 560 kilometres inside the Arctic Circle, in the cove called Toftefjord. The books are but one reflection of how Baalsrud's story has aged into an inspiring parable about the character of Norwegians: their resilience, their selflessness, their devotion to community. Innehll 1 Biografi 2 Hedersbetygelser 3 Eftermle 4 Kllor 4.1 Noter 5 Externa lnkar Biografi [ redigera | redigera wikitext] He was also ice-cold and soaking wet, his Norwegian commando uniform frozen solid. Historien er kjent gj. Film om Anden Verdenskrig fnger stadig og trkker i disse r . He was also still being pursued by Nazis. Caribou Media Group earns a commission from qualifying purchases. Den mest kjente formen utviklet med slike instrumenter er den geodetiske kuppel. He returned to Norway during his final years. 14 Best Books About Norway.
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