Escape from the Nazis, November 1941. ------------------------------------ "It was a dark and foggy night ..." The beat of a marine motor could be heard, getting louder. The 4 people in the small rowboat sat quite still, holding their breaths. Make no sound - life or death depended on it. The fog might save them. Visibility was very low. After a while the sound from the Nazi patrol boat stayed at the same level. Then it started getting weaker. They had passed, and hadn't seen us! When the motor beat had gone my father rowed on, and reached the Swedish shore and safety. I cannot remember all this - I was 14 months old, drugged to avoid unwanted noises, and I was carried in my father's backpack. I have put together various parts of the story, from bits and pieces that my father told me at different times, and from American newspaper accounts found in my parents' scrapbook. The 4 people in the rowboat: a Norwegian actress, my parents and myself. My father once told me that the actress opened her mouth to scream when the Nazis approached, and he had to put his hand hard across her mouth to stop her. For years I thought this was my father's way of spicing up the story. Then one day I met an elderly Norwegian actress - she was the one! And she confirmed my father's version. No spice needed. ------------------------------------------------------ So why did we have to escape? My father was about 40, a diplomat, and never much of an outdoor man; not at all the right type to take to the woods and do sabotage work. When the Norwegian government fled abroad in 1940, my father and a number of other people employed in the state departments were instructed to keep their jobs if possible; gather information, try to do things useful for good Norwegians, and harmful to Nazis and Quislings. So my father stayed on, until one day, someone had put up a picture of Quisling on the wall of his office. My father couldn't tolerate this, so the picture ended in the waste paper basket. Later in the war maybe they would have shot him for 'contempt of Quisling', but at this stage he only got sacked: on grey paper, signed by Quisling himself. We still have the Norwegian expression: "Avskjed paa graatt papir" - "Get the sack on grey paper". My father's activities after this? He was not doing 'outdoor' work for the Resistance movement, but knew many who did - most of his cousins were very active resistance men. A couple of them got caught and tortured. One of the cousins had an escape much more spectacular than my family's. My father and others were stealing information from the Germans - I don't know exactly how. It was probably still 'classified' in 1963 when he died. One day my father got hold of an important document meant for a German officer; containing a list of about 50 good Norwegians at a university - people the Nazis were watching, intending to arrest most of them soon. The document was passed on, probably to one of my father's cousins. The 50 Norwegians fled to Sweden, or took to the woods; and were gone when the Nazis came. But my father kept two rucksacks ready packed; he knew it might soon be his turn to run. Shortly after, he got the message to GO, NOW. He and my mother grabbed their backpacks, putting little ME into my father's; gave the dog away to a neighbour, and started on the escape route he had been given. I here quote an American newspaper account: "The middle of last November Mr Irgens was told by telephone to leave Oslo with his wife and baby by train for a point near the Swedish frontier. He was told he must read the principal Quisling newspaper while on the train, as a mark of identification. 'While on the train a woman sat near us', he said. 'When the train stopped at our destination. a man approached us, and we exchanged prearranged signals of identification.' 'We got off the train in a blackout. The man took my luggage and drove off in a car with my wife and child. I was told to walk with the woman who had been near us on the train.' 'She took me to a point on the seacoast where we met my wife and child, and the man.' 'Then we took a rowboat, and rowed for 20 minutes to Sweden.' Later, Mr Irgens continued, he flew from Sweden at an altitude of 22000 feet to London. From London he flew to Lisbon, and from there to the United States. Not once during his escape was he accosted by a Nazi soldier, Mr Irgens said. it is more difficult to get out of Norway now than it was at the time he escaped, according to Mr Irgens." Of course this newspaper story has some intentional mistakes - German spies probably read American papers. Rowing to Sweden probably took much longer than 20 minutes. According to my father, he flew from Sweden to Lisbon; not via London. Flights Sweden-London were not easily available just then. Sweden remained neutral during WW2, well ... not always as neutral as one would wish. ------------------------------------------------------ My father got over to the U.S., working at the Norwegian embassy there. My mother and I later travelled to the U.S. on the Swedish diplomat ship "Drottningholm" - used for swapping diplomats across the sea. The Drottningholm was checked by Germans before departing Sweden, and 6 passengers were denied passage. So how did my mother and I get through? Well, she used her old Swedish passport from before her marriage. When asked to account for ME, she blushed, and admitted to being an unwed mother! The American newspapers showed lots of interest in us, the scrapbook contains a number of articles, with 4 photos of little me. Some quotes from these articles: "For reasons which representatives of the line and U.S. government officials would not discuss, a Norwegian woman and her eighteen months old daughter arrived on the liner, although her husband is a Norwegian diplomatic official-in-exile. She is Mrs Francis Irgens, here to join her husband who is counselor of the Norwegian Legation-in-exile in Washington. She would not say how long ago she escaped from Norway. Her daughter Cecilie, learning to walk, got much practice on the Drottningholm." "Capital welcomes Norway escapees: Although she is scarcely 2 years old, Cecilie Irgens could spin a mighty yarn - if she had the vocabulary. Someday, when it will not give comfort to the enemy, and she is a bit more talkative, Cecilie may be able to tell of her fabulous escape from Norway with her parents ... " Now I have the vocabulary, and the mighty yarn is told. my EMail: cecilie.irgens at c2i.net - (replace ' at ' by @) - (trying to avoid spam) my Web pages: http://home.c2i.net/cecilieTT/index.htm