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Ingolf has lived in Marstrand for a long time. A few kilometers from the house is Klöverön, where his father had to swim on land in the middle of World War II. See the island from your terrace.
But it will turn out that the escape of the Nazis took place in a different way and on another nearby island.
Rolf Thorbjörn Jensen was born in 1922. Like almost all other war refugees, he was granted political asylum in Sweden.
He soon met Irma. The couple married in 1945 and had two children. Ingolf was born in 1947 and his little brother Jan the following year. The family lived at Slottsberget in Hisingen in Gothenburg.
He moved to the USA.
– Dad used to work in the Lindholmen shipyard, but my parents divorced when I was little. Then Dad went out to the lake again. Later he moved to Portland, Maine, USA and started a new family. It is said that he died in 1993 and the following year my mother Irma passed away, says Ingolf.
Mother Irma with her children Ingolf and Jan.
Photo: PRIVATE
She never met her father after the divorce in the early 1950s and has no recollection of Rolf talking about the dramatic escape. Ingolf has been told that his father must have been imprisoned. Via ship, he was on his way from Norway to Germany to be put in a concentration or labor camp before he managed to escape.
However, Ingolf has nothing to confirm what he heard about his father’s escape from the Nazis, so we tried to find out as much as possible.
The horrors of war are well documented in Norway through a series of records of citizens affected in various ways. There are also documents about all Norwegians who applied for asylum in Sweden during the war years.
Why did Rolf escape?
We made a lot of contacts in Norway and quickly learned that Rolf Jensen is not included in the Norwegian register of prisoners of war 1939-1945, Fanger.no. We also contacted the Grini Museum northwest of Oslo to verify. Grini was the great prison camp during the war where the Nazis interned and often tortured Norwegian resistance fighters and other political prisoners.
But there are no traces of Ingolf’s father recorded here either, announces Søren Aagard at the museum.
So why would Rolf Jensen land in Sweden during the war? We turned to Sweden’s leading expert on Norwegian war refugees.
Lars Hansson, Doctor of History from the University of Gothenburg.
Photo: Gothenburg University
– I would think it was a sailor who was forced to work for the German occupiers, says Lars Hansson, who wrote a dissertation and received his PhD on the flow of Norwegian refugees to Sweden during World War II.
Parts of the Norwegian merchant marine, those of Norway or other ports controlled by the Germans at the time of the occupation, were confiscated by the Nazis. The ships of the “National Fleet” in many cases transported supplies, ammunition, crew and prisoners between Norway and Germany.
Risk of death at sea
Every trip was a danger to life. There was a great risk of being attacked by planes or warships and much of the waters along the Swedish coast were full of mines. Conditions on board were often dire. Seafarers often ran the risk of fleeing even though they knew the risks. If discovered, the Germans referred to them as deserters, leading to a location in a concentration camp or immediate execution.
A Rolf Jensen born in 1922 is registered in the database of Norwegian sailors during World War II, the Krigsseilerregistret. But the information about your designs is wrong. He can’t be Ingolf’s father.
Refugee document number 8774.
Photo: Arkivverket.no
But through the Archives of Norway, we get documents about a Rolf Thorbjörn Jensen. He is registered as number 8,774 among the approximately 60,000 Norwegians who fled to Sweden during the war.
Here he is, Ingolf Jensen’s father, and now we will soon discover the details of his escape.
Alf Havstam rescued the sailors
Lars Hansson’s dissertation states that 573 Norwegian sailors fled the ships and were alive off the coast of Bohuslän during the war.
Alf Havstam has from the living room of the house in Lysekil an incomparable view of the waters where he helped save the Norwegian sailors during World War II.
Photo: BJÖRN LINDSTEN
The memorial stone at Kyrkvik in Lysekil.
Photo: BJÖRN LINDSTEN
One who helped save some of them is Lysekil’s profile, Alf Havstam, who was eight years old when war broke out and 14 when peace came in 1945. The 89-year-old has many fiery memories of the years of the war. war.
– I made sure to go many times when the alarm went off and the pilot boat left Lysekil. I lived nearby and ran to the dock to start the engines. He often had to go out.
In the waters off Lysekil, Alf participated in dramatic rescue operations.
– I helped and detained Norwegian sailors who fled the ships several times. I also have strong memories of some times when it was I who first discovered people who were swimming for life in the sea.
I got help from the Swedes
Alf became much later in life, among other things, the president of Lysekil’s friends. The association has erected a memorial stone for local sailors who have become victims of the sea just below the magnificent granite church of Lysekil.
So Rolf Jensen and his two companions fled from the Nazis.
The roughly 60,000 Norwegians who fled to Sweden mostly arrived across land borders with Bohuslän, Dalsland and Värmland. But 573 sailors fled the ships and landed along the coast of Bohuslän.
Three of them escaped from MS Halse, which anchored in the Hakefjord northeast of Marstrand in October 1942. She had been to Hamburg and was returning to Bergen in Norway with salt in her cargo. Rolf Thorbjörn Hansen, 20, and Karl-Johan Andresen, 25, had planned to flee for months. When the opportunity arose, 32-year-old Magnus Hansen Trones was also inaugurated in the plans. You had to be three years old to get on the escape boat.
In the Norwegian documents, Andresen’s story about the escape is more detailed. He says, among other things, that ten Germans were part of the crew to watch over the sailors. Still they managed to get into the little lifeboat undetected.
You then rowed for 45 minutes before being safely on Swedish soil.
In the Swedish interrogation records drawn up on October 3, 1942, it appears that Halse was moored in the Hakefjord “between Nätten and Katten” and that the trio landed at Brattön.
The refugees were questioned by Stenungsund District Attorney Anders Martell. He then handed the three Norwegian refugees over to the criminal police in Gothenburg, who then transported them to Kjesäter’s mansion in Vingåker parish in Södermanland.
The sailors who fled the German-controlled ships received almost exceptional help from the Swedes. Lars Hansson tells in his dissertation: “The reception of the fugitives by the coastal population was also consistently positive. When, for example, 33 sailors escaped from a ship in the port of Lysekil during a single week in October 1942, relief operations began immediately between the staff of the United Canned Factory in Sweden, the commercial employees and the merchants of the city “.
M / S Halse was anchored off Hakefjorden in October 1942. Then three of the Norwegian sailors fled the ship and became political refugees in Sweden.
Photo: Mandal Sailors Association / Warfare Registry
That same month, a few miles south, Ingolf Jensen’s father, Rolf, fled for his life. In the documents of the Norwegian Archives, he tells about the escape of the ship M / S Halse:
“On Saturday the 3rd the ship was anchored off Marstrand in Sweden. Along with 8,773 Andresen and 8,776 Hansen, I rowed ashore with a small boat that belonged to the Germans on board. This happened at 2.30 pm. I ran away because I no longer wanted to work for the Germans. ”
From Brattön to Portland
The interrogation protocol with the Swedish state prosecutor Anders Martell contains more precise information about the escape. They rowed in the Hakefjord northeast of Marstrand and landed after 45 minutes in Brattön.
Rolf Jensen was born on March 25, 1922 in Kirkøy in Hvalerarkipelagen, which is located northwest of Strömstad. He went to sea early and was only 20 years old when he escaped from the Nazis.
After being questioned by the Swedish police, he, like 42,800 other Norwegian refugees, was transferred to Kjesäter in Södermanland. The castle became a gathering place where refugees rested before being taken away. According to the documents, Rolf Jensen’s first address was Norway Ytterhogdal in Härjedalen.
Just a year after his escape, in September 1943, he moved to Gothenburg.
What happened to Rolf after the divorce from Ingolf’s mother? After a few years on the lake, he started a new family in 1955 in Portland, Maine, atop the northeastern United States. Rolf had a third marriage before dying in 1993 at the age of 70, all according to the My Heritage genealogy database. And after our contacts with the Norwegian authorities, he is now also registered as one of the heroes among the sailors of war.
– He feels sad that I could never meet him as an adult. Unfortunately, that never happened, says his son Ingolf Jensen.
