Kirsten Svineng

Kirsten Svineng (Kirsten Elisabeth Johannesdattir Svineng, Sami: Ánná Johanas Kirste, also known as Mamma Karasjok , born December 7, 1891 in Svineng ; † May 8, 1980 in Karasjok ) was a nurse and representative of the nonviolent resistance during the occupation of Norway by the German Army in World War II .

Live and act

Kirsten Svineng as a housekeeper in Gildeskal in 1916, sitting with a child on her lap

Kirsten Svineng was born on December 7th 1891 as the daughter of the small farmer Johannes Josefson Guttorm and Marith Andersdattir Lindi, a midwife and certified vaccinator, in Svineng in the municipality of Karasjok ( Troms og Finnmark ) as an ethnic Samin . After childhood years on her parents' farm, a simple school education and an upbringing in the spirit of a moderate Laestadianism , she hired herself as a domestic help in the parishes of Tana (Troms og Finnmark) and Gildeskal ( Nordland ). After the First World War , she worked as a night nurse in a tuberculosis home in Karasjok, founded by the Pietist "Lappenmission", but lost her job shortly after the German army marched in in 1940. For the next few years she earned her living with handicrafts.

Her commitment to the Yugoslav prisoners interned in the German forced labor camp in Karasjok made her known far beyond Norway after the end of the war. After the occupation of Norway by Hitler's Germany in 1942, penal and labor camps were set up all over Norway, including Karasjok. The forced laborers from Yugoslavia who were brought there were supposed to build a road to the Finnish border, which later became known as the blood road . They suffered under such inhumane conditions that these camps are considered extermination camps. Of the 340 prisoners of war, after less than half a year of forced labor, only just over 100 men were still alive.

At the risk of her life, Kirsten Svineng not only provided the forced laborers with food, which she hid near the camp, but also supported fleeing prisoners on their way to neutral Sweden or secretly kept their letters back home. This is why she was affectionately known as Mamma Karasjok by the Yugoslav slave laborers, a name by which she later became known. When the German army withdrew from Norway, almost all houses in Karasjok were destroyed, including Kirsten Svineng's simple wooden house. After the war she started working again in the newly built hospital in Karasjok.

In 1957, the chairman of the board of the Yugoslav freedom fighters wrote a letter to the mayor of Karasjok thanking the Norwegian people for the humanitarian aid provided to the inmates of the extermination camp in Karasjok during the war. Kirsten Svineng is specifically mentioned as Mamma Karasjok. Together with 13 other people from all parts of Norway, she is invited to Yugoslavia to honor her humanitarian commitment. The delegation received a great deal of media attention in 1957 in Yugoslavia. Kirsten Svineng was awarded the Order of the Yugoslavian Flag with a Star by the Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia in Belgrade .

Kirsten Svineng received another honor in May 1965, when the Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito made a state visit to Oslo at the invitation of King Olav V of Norway. Through the mediation of the liberal daily Dagbladet , Kirsten Svineng was invited to the state visit to Oslo, where he had a long conversation with Tito, the Norwegian Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen and the wives of the two statesmen who were also present.

In 1970 Gyldendal Norsk Forlag A / S published a biography about Kirsten Svineng under the title Mamma Karasjok. Its author was the Norwegian journalist Per Hansson , who at the time was the editor in charge of Dagbladet.

In reports about Kirsten Svineng, her work for the sick and prisoners of war is often compared with the work of Mother Theresa .

Kirsten Svineng died on May 8, 1980 in Karasjok hospital at the age of 88.

Culture of remembrance

Memorial for the Yugoslav prisoners of war who died in the Karasjok concentration camp between 1940 and 1945

Foundation stone of the planned Mamma Karasjok Center on the premises of the Sami Samliger Museum in Karasjok.

The memory of the achievements of Kirsten Svineng as well as the participation of parts of the Norwegian population in the crimes of National Socialism have been forgotten since the 80s of the last century. The memorial for the murdered 350 Yugoslav slave laborers erected in Karasjok after the war is remote, derelict and without a sign opposite a sports hall in a birch grove. The inscription on the memorial stone reads in Norwegian and Serbo-Croatian: "In memory of the Yugoslav prisoners of war who lost their lives in Karasjok between 1940 and 1945 and who are buried here". Kirsten Svineng's achievements are seldom actively recognized today. Mostly there are private cultural initiatives, local museums or foreign initiatives that point to Kirsten Svineng and her resistance during the time of the Norwegian collaboration with National Socialism.

Reports from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation - Norsk rikskringkasting NRK - have actively taken up the topic again in recent years. In 2013, just before the visit of the Yugoslav veteran Velimir Pavlovic, who was formerly interned in Karasjok, the board of directors of the Sami Samliger Museum in Karasjok decided to open a Mamma Karasjok center on the premises of the museum. This is supposed to document the history of the Sami during the Second World War. Kirsten Svinenk's house is also to be demolished and rebuilt on the museum grounds. The foundation stone was officially inaugurated by Velimir Pavlovic and his wife Moravka Pavlovic in the presence of the director of the museum, Thoralf Henriksen. Velimir Pavlovic had traveled to the recordings of a Norwegian television documentary on the subject of Yugoslav prisoners of war. The decision to lay the foundation stone had led to a conflict with the mayor of Karasjok, who apparently had not been informed of the plans for a Mamma Karasjok Center.

Efforts are currently being made to expand the De Sami Samliger museum in Karasjok, which is in need of renovation, into a large cultural center, which will combine the existing collection with a Mamma Karasjok center, a Mari Boine center, a center for Sami history during the Second World War and an amphitheater should.

Web links

Homepage of the Sami Samliger Museum in Karasjok

literature

Per Hansson: Mamma Karaschok. Kirsten Svineng's life for the sick and prisoners of war in Lapland. Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, Basel 1972, ISBN 3-7245-0049-1 , p. 223 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Geneanet. In: Entry Kirsten Elisabeth Johannesdatter Svineng. Retrieved October 7, 2017 (Norwegian). 
2. ↑ Marte Lindi: This catch is «blodveien» - og så ble de henrettet. NRK, November 8, 2014, accessed October 7, 2017 (Norwegian). 
3. ↑ Order of jugoslovenske zastave. Retrieved October 8, 2017 (Serbian). 
4. ↑ James Proctor: Lapland . In: The Bradt Travel Guide . Bradt, UK, ISBN 978-1-84162-917-9 , pp. 168 f .
5. ↑ Mette Ballovara, Dan Robert Larsen: Krigsfangebesøk i Karasjok Forte til hastevedtak om krigsminnesenter. NRK, May 25, 2013, accessed October 8, 2017 (Norwegian). 
6. ↑ Dan Robert Larsen: Følelsesladet møte med Karasjok. NRK, May 24, 2013, accessed October 8, 2017 (Norwegian). 
7. ^ Marte Lindi, Liss Jacobsen: Langvarig strid er over - satser på samisk kultursenter. December 11, 2014, accessed October 8, 2017 (Norwegian).