Publisert 22. feb. 2016 kl. It's a silent, tiny bay, bordered on three sides by stark moss-green outcroppings. Baalsrud was handsome, as Dagmar recalls, her face reddening at the memory. Suffering from snowblindness and frostbite, more than sixty people of the Troms District risk their lives to help Baalsrud to freedom. The Germans pursued him. A desperate Baalsrud banged on the door of a house, uncertain whether friend or foe lay behind it. This was where Baalsrud was left for nine more days, lying buried in a cave of snow most of the time, waiting for help to return. "These guys were unspoiled in '43," Haug tells me softly as the motorboat reaches the shore. His last wish was to be buried in the fjords, in the village of Mandal, alongside the grave of Aslak Fossvoll, a Norwegian resistance leader who visited Baalsrud in the cave at Skaidijonni, only to die of diphtheria four weeks after Baalsrud made it safely to Sweden. He devised a technique to keep from falling: he threw a snowball, and if he didn't hear it hit the ground, he went in the other direction. 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. Jan Baalsrud was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway and moved with his family to Kolbotn in the early 1930s. Barely alive, he continued to resist. view all Jovelyn Evy Miller Baalsrud's Timeline Source: Flickr.com/trondheim_byarkiv (CC BY 2.0). That ended German occupation, and Baalsrud traveled to Oslo to reunite with his family, whom he had left five years before.[2]. Marius came to visit and meant to come back again, but a storm delayed him for another five days. The British honored Baalsrud by appointing him a member of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and the Norwegian government awarded him with the St. Olav's Medal with Oak Branch. Ten of the remaining men were dragged from the icy water, turned over to the Gestapo, and executed. It houses a few of his recovered possessions, including his skis which were found in 1943 at the bottom of a gully, and hidden until the end of the war. Tore Haug, walks up the hill where Baalsrud shot two Nazis. A 5.5-kilometre trail leads to this fissure, the same trail that the people of Manndalen used when they sneaked up to Jan Baalsrud to bring him food. The Gronvoll family's barn, where Baalsrud, snow-blind and lame, recovered after the avalanche, is still standing just up the road. Lise Haug Halvorsen (tel. The film has been a hit with audiences and gained rave reviews. 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. Jovelyn ("Evie") Miller (1.1.1925-15.5.1963) var Jan Baalsruds frste kone. Po skonen vlky Jan Baalsrud byl lenem Unie norskch vlench invalid a v letech 1957 a 1964 byl jejm pedsedou. He had been running from the same gunfire. Meanings for Jan baalsrud A former Commando, who gained the Order of the British Empire award during World War II. Baalsrud faced a grim reality. While driving their reindeer on spring passage, they pulled him on a sled across Finland and into neutral Sweden. Back home, Baalsrud fell and fractured his hip, and X-rays revealed a cancerous tumour that had already metastasised. ON THE DRIVE TO REVDAL, Haug tells me that he wants me to experience the "Hotel Savoy" alone to leave me there for several minutes in silence so I can imagine what it must have been like to stay in there, day after day, expecting Marius and his friends to come, but them never coming, to be experiencing incredible pain from gangrene, to start to think that this would be the place where he would die. Finally, his luck began to improve, when stumbled on Furuflaten, a small village between Mt. jan baalsrud wife. Jan Baalsrud facts. In 2001, he and a co-author, Astrid Karlsen Scott, published Defiant Courage, a day-by-day reconstruction of Baalsrud's story that exhaustively praises the people of the fjords who smuggled him past German patrols, ministered to his frostbitten feet and hid him in lofts, barns and sheds. 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. Unknown Binding. He lived there until his death on 30 December 1988, aged 71. She was 10 when Baalsrud tore through Toftefjord. Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl, translated by F. H. Lyon. Jan Baalsrud var den einaste som greidde koma seg unna. 00. However, many Norwegians bravely fought back against the Germans as part of underground resistance groups. In early 1943, he, three other commandos, and a boat crew of eight, all Norwegians, embarked on a mission to destroy a German airfield control tower at Bardufoss, and recruit for the Norwegian resistance movement. He is known for Nine Lives (1957), Flykten ver Klen (1979) and I Jan Baalsruds fotspor (2014). That was where, later that night, Dagmar's sister and cousin left the house in the dark and came back with the blue-eyed stranger. The threat of gangrene increased every day, forcing Baalsrud to do the unfathomable: He used a pocket knife to slice off the tips of his toes and amputated his big toe to save the rest of his feet from infection. Baalsrud was born in Norways capital city (now Oslo) in 1917. En side for minnes Jan Baalsrud. Above the Arctic Circle in Northern Norway, the dramatic story of the young resistance fighter, Jan Baalsrud, unfolds. It is not currently marked, but the GPS coordinates are as follows:69.467396, 20.325756 There is a reasonable parking area next to the fjord, and you then follow a short path down to the cabin. The men lit a fuse, waiting until the last minute to jump before the Brattholm exploded. Free with Audible trial. This mission, Operation Martin, was compromised when Baalsrud and his fellow soldiers, seeking a Resistance contact, accidentally made contact with a civilian shopkeeper who had taken over the store run by their intended contact and had the same name. He lay tied to a stretcher as they stealthily took him through fiords and dragged him up and down snowy mountains. He had no map, no food, no water and no plan. Smurfette Principle: Three female actors, with Agnes (Henny Moan) getting most of the attention. Advertisement His soaked uniform was crystallising, hardening into a shell of ice. Eventually, traveling by reindeer sleigh, with his pursuers now hot on his tail, he made it through Nazi-occupied Finland to Sweden. TODAY, FURUFLATEN IS STILL very small, with about 250 people. Tragically, that too would fail. Jan Baalsrud. He turned up toward the hill, planted one bootless foot in the snow and ran. A small museum in Furuflaten commemorates Baalsrud. Five stars to an. A father grieving the loss of his own innocent child rowed him in a dinghy through the night. Germans surrendering to a Norwegian resistance leader, May 11th, 1945. The house on the island of Hersya is run by Karlsy Jeger og Fisk. Publicity Listings Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. He also amputated one of his big toes. Devastating Wound(s): At one point during the Battle of Arnhem, Major Robert Caindecided that his days of being pounded into retreat by German tanks had come to an end. They eventually left him again in a rock crevice where he would remain for nine more days. He evaded capture for approximately two months, suffering from frostbite and snow blindness. On foot, wearing only one boot in the snow, he stumbled upon a house and took the risk of banging on the door. He graduated as a cartographical instrument-maker in 1939. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. He seemed grateful and relieved; his sensitivity, along with his courtesy and bravado, was what so many others would remember about him in the decades to come. Faced with freezing temperatures and brutal conditions his story is an incredible one. A kind fisherman gave him new boots and a pair of skis. After taking shelter in a friendly arctic village, he managed to . Winston Churchill had always maintained that control of the North Sea would be essential to any Allied victory. He eventually found himself at the foot of Jaeggevarre, a 900m mountain near the Lyngen River. At the place where eight of the 11 onboard the MS Brattholm were executed stands a memorial today. As the Germans opened fire on the dinghy, Baalsrud dove into the frigid Arctic water and swam to shore. He would have swam silently to a number of seaplanes at the Bardufoss air base and planted magnetic limpet mines to destroy them. The 12th Man is the story of Jan Baalsrud, a Norwegian resistance fighter, one of a dozen saboteurs trained by British intelligence to carry out a raid on an air traffic control tower in the . Upon learning that Operation Martin had failed, the twelve men quickly returned to the fishing boat that was packed with their explosives and attempted to escape. Baalsrud barely survived. He soon traveled back to Norway to aid the resistance directly, and witnessed the liberation of his country as the war ended. We therefore travelled around the Lyngenfjord to see where it all happened. 10 . When he left, Agnete was bereft. He never settled in one place, and compartmentalized these interactions by refusing to disclose who he had visited previously or where he was headed next. Baalsrud knew the fate of Norway didn't hinge on whether he made it out of the country alive. sex or gender. Of the four Norwegian commandos who launched a sabotage mission against the Nazis, Jan Baalsrud was the only one left standing. Their son Are recalls standing with Baalsrud outside their house, next to the barn where he once hid for days. Baalsrud spent seven months in a Swedish hospital in Boden before he was flown back to Britain in an RAF de Havilland Mosquito aircraft. By this point, Baalsrud was delirious and hallucinating, recounting that he heard the voices of his eleven comrades calling out to him. 14 Best Books About Norway. He even boldly whizzed past a group of German soldiers on their way to breakfast, vanishing from view before they thought to wonder who he was. He did, however, have a gun: a small Colt, still snapped in its holster. Piece details HS 2/161Special Operations Executive: Group C, Scandinavia: Registered FilesNorwayOperation MARTIN; list of Norwegian refugees; Lt Jan Siguard Baalsrud's report, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jan_Baalsrud&oldid=1137082465, Chairman of the Norwegian Disabled Veterans Union (1957 1964), This page was last edited on 2 February 2023, at 18:22. He spent the last several weeks tied on a stretcher, near death, as teams of Norwegian villagers dragged him up and down hills and snowy mountains.[1]. Now a prime target for the Gestapo forces, Baalsrud took on his most important assignment yet: protecting his own life. The annual Jan Baalsrud March takes place in late July each year. www.opendialoguemediations.com. The 12th Man - the film about Jan Baalsrud. He was shielded from German soldiers and shunted between villages, desperately trying to cross into Sweden. He is known for Nine Lives (1957), Flykten ver Klen (1979) and I Jan Baalsruds fotspor (2014). Now unable to walk unaided, he wondered if he would be best to end his suffering and ease the risk to those helping him. Jan Sigurd Baalsrud was born on December 13, 1917, in Kristiana (now Oslo) in Norway. Audible Audiobook. He aimed and pulled the trigger. Dagmar Idrupsen is one of the last people still living who saw Baalsrud during his escape. During his weeks there, Baalsrud completed the amputation of the rest of his toes. Everywhere you look, you're in both the middle of nowhere and the centre of the universe. Det neste barnet de fikk dde bare n uke gammel, i januar 1955. Since the spread of gangrene was continuing, he amputated the rest of his toes, and would later say he seriously contemplated suicide. It's you.". Fearing for his life and suspecting it was a test by the Germans, he reported them to the local police office, which notified the Germans. His skis had been destroyed, and he had been separated from his pack of supplies. Alle var motstandsmenn fr m/k Brattholm I som blei pteken i Toftefjord 30. mars. Their fishing boat, the Brattholm, carried a secret cargo of bombs and explosive devices. The story of Jan Baalsruds escape through occupied Northern Norway in the spring of 1943 has something of the improbable about it. There was the midwife who offered to hide him upstairs, disguising him as a woman in labour. On the fourth day, he found his way to a small village called Furuflaten. The Norwegians scuttled their boat by detonating the explosive using a time-delay fuse and fled in small boats, but they were promptly sunk by the Germans. He died in Norway, however. Jan Baalsrud is a well known Celebrity. Baalsrud joked to them that it was every bit as nice as the Hotel Savoy. . In a case of mistaken identity, they spoke to a civilian who had the same name as their contact. When he did, he moved to Scotland and trained resistance fighters. 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. 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. Alone for two more weeks in a cave, he used a knife to amputate several of his own frostbitten toes to stop the spread of gangrene. Brave visitors can attempt the grueling route that Baalsrud took, now marked on certain maps with a small red B. It houses some of his possessions, including the skis he lost in an avalanche. As he watched four soldiers climbing toward him, he took stock. Source: Anders Beer Wilse / Galleri NOR. There was the fisherman who outfitted Baalsrud with new boots and a pair of skis. An ambulance plane took him to Oslo University Hospital, but it was too late. But not until after being shot and injured, going snowblind, and even having to amputate some of his toes by himself to avoid gangrene from spreading. He spent five days under the open sky, growing confused, despondent and finally hopeless. Kjellaug still lives in Furuflaten, working as a nurse in a neighbouring town. He wasn't holding secret information that could win the war; he had no special value to the military. He heard more gunfire. According to Haug and Karlsen Scott, two German soldiers searched the barn once but did not check the loft where Baalsrud was hiding behind a bed of hay. He was sure he would be next. Due to weather and German patrols in the town of Manndalen, Kfjord, he was there for 27 days and was close to death for lack of food. Then came a blizzard. After the war, Baalsrud contributed to the local scout and football associations. . Baalsrud was appointed honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire by the British. Mountainous terrain on the Norway-Finland border. He wandered in a snowstorm for three days. Although the restored cabin looks quite idyllic when the weather is good, one can only imagine how freezing it must have been on ice-cold April nights. They kept running, to the shore on the east side of the island, and shouted for help. From Furuflaten, Marius and his three friends had rowed Baalsrud across the fjord to a hamlet called Revdal. Are and Kjellaug Gronvoll outside the barn where their father's family hid Baalsrud in a loft. The others drew back, buying him time. Official Sites. Norwegian SOE personnel. It's open only a few days a week, and there is no sign outside to tell anyone that it exists. Marius and Agnete's daughter Kjellaug serves rolls with cheese and jam, then cake, then coffee. 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.
