Jan Baalsruds fantastiske flukt fra tyskerne i Troms vren 1943 ble internasjonalt kjent gjennom filmen Ni liv, basert p Baalsruds egen beretning i David Howarths bok We die alone. 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. Howarth, in We Die Alone, proposed what would, for Baalsrud, be the essential question: "Was he right, as a soldier, to let women and children put their lives in such terrible danger?". Jan Baalsrud - 1942 During the Second Word War, Jan Baalsrud joined the Norwegian Company Linge - originally based in Britain. He was a Second Lieutenant (Fenrik). Along the main road is a little museum devoted to Baalsrud: really just an alcove inside a community centre, a wooden barn-style building with a stage for assemblies and community theatre. Their son Are recalls standing with Baalsrud outside their house, next to the barn where he once hid for days. It's a silent, tiny bay, bordered on three sides by stark moss-green outcroppings. She remembers the sound of machine-gun fire outside her window. When the weather finally cleared, he was snowblind, hallucinating, and crippled with frostbite in his toes. Marius and Agnete's daughter Kjellaug serves rolls with cheese and jam, then cake, then coffee. He spotted a gully, a long, lightning-shaped sliver in the snowy hillside, and climbed into it, taking cover behind a large rock. 1 reference. Etter den annen verdenskrig var Baalsrud virksom for krigsinvalidenes sak. However, film buffs and military history enthusiasts will be interested in seeing the places where the real drama unfolded. Baalsrud and his men hastily detonated all eight tons of explosives they had with them, then jumped aboard their dinghy, and sought to flee. But then the old soldier grinned grimly, gritting his teeth, and glanced at Are. De giftet seg i 1951 De fikk datteren Liv i 1958. "I had forgotten the whole story, or rather I had tried to forget it all," Baalsrud said in a radio interview years later, "and it was completely forgotten when David Howarth came." After his mission of helping the resistance in Nazi-occupied Norway fell, Jan Baalsrud found himself on the run from Nazi troops, nearly naked and with a serious bullet wound, trying to make his way through the Norwegian tundra. Fleeing up the hill, the family heard an explosion Baalsrud, scuttling the Brattholm that sent flaming debris flying up in their direction, seemingly following their path. Smurfette Principle: Three female actors, with Agnes (Henny Moan) getting most of the attention. Eventually, through the support of local villagers who put their own lives in danger to help him, he found freedom and went on to live a relatively normal life until his death in 1988 at the age of 71. male. 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. 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. The memorial is now in the grounds of the University of Troms and is engraved with the names of all of those who died. He lived there until the 1950s. The message, in Norwegian: "I saw him, but I didn't say anything." Related External link: The Shetland Bus - This page lists those who died in this service, . In early 1943, he, three other commandos and the boat crew of eight, all Norwegians, embarked on a dangerous mission to destroy a German air control tower. 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. The boat was discovered; three of them were shot and eight arrested and later executed in Troms. An avalanche buried him up to his neck. view all Jovelyn Evy Miller Baalsrud's Timeline Then he returned to his old life, outside Oslo. human. An unimaginable strength and resilience had taken hold of Baalsrud. Everyone in the room understood the danger he was putting them in. jan baalsrud wife. The march takes eight days and you can do either walk the entire route or just part of it. He is not dating anyone. Norwegian Jan Baalsrud: A Incredible Survivor In WWII War History Online, Following in the Tracks of Jan Baalsrud Nord Norge, RECOILweb: Behavioral Cues for Avoiding a Fight , Video: Knife Expert Analyzes Movie Knife Fights, Letter from the Editor: All Restraints Are Temporary, Outlast on Netflix: New TV Show Blends Alone with Lord of the Flies. It remains all but impassable in winter. After taking shelter in a friendly arctic village, he managed to . This turned out to be Baalsrud's great stroke of luck. From there, the route zigzags south 130 kilometres up and down mountains and across rivers, concluding at last at the border Norway shares with Sweden and Finland. But in warmer weather, anyone can walk the trail, or most of it. "I can tell you something, youngest son of Marius," he said. As of 2018 Jan Baalsrud is 71 years (age at death) years old. When he noticed a soldier gaining on him, he pulled it out and fired a handful of failed shots before a final successful one killed his enemy. In a very real sense, it fractured them. His ashes are buried in Manndalen, in a grave shared with Aslak Aslaksen Fossvoll (19001943), one of the local men who helped him escape to Sweden. Mountainous terrain on the Norway-Finland border. He is known for Nine Lives (1957), Flykten ver Klen (1979) and I Jan Baalsruds fotspor (2014). A memorial to Kompani Linge in Scotland. He was now stranded in enemy territory, aware that anyone who might help him would be killed if Germans found out. 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. 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. When he arrived in a hospital in Sweden, Baalsrud weighed 80 pounds. The 12th Man - the film about Jan Baalsrud. He evaded capture for approximately two months, suffering from frostbite and snow blindness. Fellow Norwegians transported Baalsrud by stretcher toward the border with Finland. An elegant pedestrian bridge has been constructed across the river, almost at the end of the trial. There was the midwife who offered to hide him upstairs, disguising him as a woman in labour. Geni requires JavaScript! Instead, they travelled a bit, then set up another shelter for him while they went to find more help. They had seven children, three of whom meet me at the barn: two sons, Are and Dag, and a daughter, Kjellaug. He spent five days under the open sky, growing confused, despondent and finally hopeless. Two Norwegian commandos tried it just two years ago; when a storm came, they had to be airlifted out. The others drew back, buying him time. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. So, in April 1940, the Blitzkrieg came to Norway. This action saved the rest of his feet. Meanwhile, a local farmer named Nils Nilsen had skied 65 kilometres to Sweden and another 65 back to round up more help for Baalsrud. An avalanche buried him up to his neck. Cannes: Harald Zwart on Fulfilling a Childhood Dream With 'The 12th Man' Jonathan Rhys Meyers co-stars in Zwart's WWII drama about Norwegian resistance hero Jan Baalsrud. We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance. This particular effort, however, was a complete failure. Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. He made it to an arctic village, nearing death. Zwart. 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. Inside the hut is a wooden platform, like the one Baalsrud was lying on when, half-mad with agony, he took a knife to his own feet. During preparations for this dangerous mission, one of the commandos attempted to make contact with a local member of the resistance. By now, Baalsrud was on the verge of suicide. From behind the rock, he saw the soldiers getting closer, within range. He'd just swum 60 metres through frigid water, fleeing the burning wreckage of an exploded boat. There was a young girl who was the first to get a close look at Baalsrud's frostbitten feet and tried to bandage them as best she could. By his third day wandering alone, he was hallucinating, hearing the voices of the men of the Brattholm he had left behind. 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. Even years after the war despite the book, the movie and the indomitable legend some neighbours, Are says, still think of Marius and his family as troublemakers, the ones who had endangered their community, who put everyone at risk. His deteriorating physical condition forced him to rely on the assistance of Norwegian patriots. instance of. www.opendialoguemediations.com. Guiding us through the fjords is Tore Haug, a distinguished-looking 74-year-old sports-medicine doctor and former commercial pilot who may be one of the last living authorities on Baalsrud's escape. A normal man in many ways, he had a genius for survival. With the help of many locals, he managed to reach Sweden, but not entirely intact, as he was forced to amputate most of his toes because of frostbite he developed while in a snow cave. The trail is easy to follow, almost free from rocky sections and with only short stretches of bog. He aimed and pulled the trigger. ON MARCH 29, 1943, with the brutal Norwegian winter not yet waning, Jan Baalsrud and 11 commandos and crewmen slipped into a secluded cove in the country's northern fjords. He joined Linge Company, a group of young Norwegians who trained with the Allies in special ops and then sailed back on stealth missions, across the North Sea from Shetland, Scotland, and into occupied Norway, using the maze of fjords as cover. Norwegian Independent Company 1 was one such unit, and is better known as Kompani Linge after its leader, Captain Martin Linge. Despite this, she described his sensitivity, courtesy, and grateful attitude towards her family as they helped him. He soon traveled back to Norway to aid the resistance directly, and witnessed the liberation of his country as the war ended. Jan Baalsrud and the Norwegian Coast Norwegian World War II soldier Jan Sigurd Baalsrud found himself in quite the predicament during the German invasion of Norway. 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 would have swam silently to a number of seaplanes at the Bardufoss air base and planted magnetic limpet mines to destroy them. In a case of mistaken identity, they spoke to a civilian who had the same name as their contact. 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. Gjennom 5 episoder fortelles Baalsrudhistorien p en ny mte og s sannferdig som vi kjenner den i dag. June 12, 2022 . Ten of the remaining men were dragged from the icy water, turned over to the Gestapo, and executed. Source: Flickr.com/kimberlykv. Like his famous relative, Haug is reserved. Only he had managed to escape and he would certainly be killed if caught. Baalsrud was born in Norways capital city (now Oslo) in 1917. He fully amputated one of his big toes and sliced the dead flesh off the tips of several others. He lived there until his death on 30 December 1988, aged 71. Baalsruds final wish before he died in 1988 was to be buried in the churchyard in Manndalen. 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. [4], A street in Kolbotn, Norway is named Jan Baalsruds plass (Jan Baalsrud's Place) in his honor. Baalsrud barely survived. Connect to 5,000+ Miller profiles on Geni, Jan 1 1924 - New York City, New York, United States, May 15 1963 - Tacoronte, Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Charles Duncan Miller, Evelyn Spencer Miller (born Witherbee). He wandered in a snowstorm for three days. reconstituted family advantages and disadvantages; . Specifically: His ashes are buried in Manndalen in a grave shared with Aslak Aslaksen Fossvoll (1900-1943), one of the local men who helped him escape to Sweden. Over the next weeks, local villagers coordinated to assist him safely from place to place. Dagmar's aunt sent a small boat to fetch them to her own place across the fjord. During his weeks there, Baalsrud completed the amputation of the rest of his toes. Jan Sigurd Baalsrud, 1917 - 1988 Jan Sigurd Baalsrud was born on month day 1917, at birth place, to Nils Julius Baalsrud and Hansine "Lilla" Baalsrud. 1 reference. Above the Arctic Circle in Northern Norway, the dramatic story of the young resistance fighter, Jan Baalsrud, unfolds. At one point, German soldiers even searched the barn where he was hiding, but he managed to evade detection staying quiet in the loft. Fearing it would spread, he cut off his big toe and the infected bit of the index toe. They had one child. 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? And though Arthur, his wife, and Ellen's mother died while in hiding, the kindness of these . 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. Then he fired again, twice. Escaping the Nazis, Norwegian commando Jan Baalsrud swam across a fjord, was buried in an avalanche, and had to amputate his own toes. She was 10 when Baalsrud tore through Toftefjord. ON SKIS, BAALSRUD THOUGHT, the rest of the trip would be easy. 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 . Innehll 1 Biografi 2 Hedersbetygelser 3 Eftermle 4 Kllor 4.1 Noter 5 Externa lnkar Biografi [ redigera | redigera wikitext] The goal of this operation was to use 8 tons of explosives to destroy critical assets at a German air base in the town of Bardufoss in northern Norway. Baalsrud began to see the signs of gangrene in his frost-damaged feet, so he sterilized his pocket knife in the flame of a lantern and did what he knew he had to do. He ran. We don't have much information about He's past relationship and any previous engaged. 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. Jan Baalsrud is a member of famous Celebrity list. 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. When Baalsrud spotted German ships moving into the cove, he knew the mission was finished. He was still in active service at the time of the war's end, in 1945. Source: Anders Beer Wilse / Galleri NOR. Less than a year after reaching Sweden, Baalsrud returned to Scotland, where he would train other Norwegian resistance members and Allied forces alongside the British SOE. he returned to the life he had started with his wife . Since the spread of gangrene was continuing, he amputated the rest of his toes, and would later say he seriously contemplated suicide. Dagmar saw the man's gun the snub-nosed Colt and a shiver of fear ran through her. David Howarths book We Die Alone (1955) retells Baalsruds story and was made into a film soon after its release. 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. Until the day he died, he felt an extreme gratitude towards the civilians who had helped him hide from the Germans during his escape to neutral Sweden. William Butler, 60, and his wife Simone, 52, were on their boat off the . 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. Someone in the next village alerted the Germans within a day of the team's arrival. During the German invasion of Norway in 1940, Baalsrud fought in Vestfold. On the fourth day, he found his way to a small village called Furuflaten. Biografi[endre| endre wikiteksten] Baalsrud tok svennebrev som geodetisk instrumentmakar i 1939. Structural Info Facts Known for movies Nine Lives 1957 as Miscellaneous Crew Source IMDB Wikipedia P.O.Box 434, 8001 Bod, Storgata 69, Troms "I don't know," Baalsrud said. 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. He then runs barefoot through snow until the gunfire dies out. Then came a blizzard. One scene sees Stage testing the water's temperature to see how long his target could have lasted in . His skis had been destroyed, and he had been separated from his pack of supplies. Baalsrud, 25, had three years of military experience behind him when he set off with 11 other men on a covert mission to Norway. 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. He also amputated one of his big toes. Their fishing boat, the Brattholm, carried a secret cargo of bombs and explosive devices. 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. At the place where eight of the 11 onboard the MS Brattholm were executed stands a memorial today. Source: The New York Times. Film om Anden Verdenskrig fnger stadig og trkker i disse r . 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. image. Baalsrud settled on a method for minimising the risks he presented to every new person he met: never tell anyone who he saw along the way and never confirm where he would be going next. SOLUND (NRK): 1. juledag er det premiere p den nye filmen om krigshelten Jan Baalsrud. Then WWII broke out. Jan Baalsruds longest stay anywhere during his escape was in a mountain fissure at the top of the Manndalen valley. He saw a house and stumbled inside. A building nearby was a German military headquarters; he just as easily could have barged in there, and his story would have ended. Over the next nine weeks, Baalsrud was the subject of a nationwide manhunt by the Germans. He graduated as a cartographical instrument-maker in 1939. To help know which direction in which to walk without falling off a cliff, he made snowballs, listening to the sound they made as they hit the ground. Hotel Savoy is situated off the E6 just north of the boundary between the municipalities of Storfjord and Kfjord, 14 km north of Skibotn. The 12th Man. He died in Norway, however. Baalsrud was visibly frail. Not far from the shore is a small shed, about two by three metres, where they left him on a wooden platform, unable to walk, but within reach of food, water, a knife and a bottle of homemade hard liquor. All Rights Reserved | View Non-AMP Version. Glad for air, I walk with Haug below the high ridge where Marius and his friends, once they did come back, painstakingly pulled Baalsrud, still strapped to a sled, up to another hiding spot, 800 metres higher than the Hotel Savoy. Haug shuts the door. jan baalsrud--a norwegian patriot during wwII--captured my imagination in the page's of david howarth's riveting book, and his story of survival under the relentless pursuit of the nazi's, is maybe the best to come out of that war. By the time a group of Sami, Norway's indigenous people, came to take him across the border, Baalsrud weighed just 36 kilograms. (The file notes were written at the time of the accident). He had just one boot, having lost the other in the water. He had been bold enough to swim in the same icy waters that they had crossed by boat. By the end, Baalsrud was less a hero than a package in need of safe delivery, out of Nazi hands. From here, the path is well-marked with signs and orange tape. Jaeggevarre, a 3,000-foot peak. 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,019. Jan Sigurd Baalsrud (1917- 1988) (47953919208).jpg 800 986; 597 KB. Jan was born on December 13, 1917 in Kristiania, Norway.. Jan is one of the famous and trending celeb who is popular for being a Celebrity. The house on the island of Hersya is run by Karlsy Jeger og Fisk. But something inside him kept fighting to survive. Baalsrud was the only commando to evade capture and, soaking wet and missing one sea boot, he escaped into a snow gully, where he shot and killed a German Gestapo officer with his pistol. Baalsrud's assignment was to swim underwater and fasten some of the explosive devices limpets, or magnetic bombs to seaplanes in order to sink them. Passing over the mountain was critical to his escape, but he was ill-equipped for such a venture. There are Baalsrud's wooden skis, recovered by a local resident in the bottom of the valley in the summer of 1943 and hidden until the end of the war. They are all at least 50 now. In 1957, the book was made into a film, which was nominated for an Oscar and voted Norways best film of all time. Han var fenrik i Kompani Linge under 2. verdenskrig. Were working to restore it. The story was later told in British author, View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro. Audible Audiobook. En side for minnes Jan Baalsrud. He headed south, knocking on doors when he was out of strength or in danger of freezing to death, never knowing if the people on the other side of the door would turn him in. None of them did, as Haug and Karlsen Scott recount in their book, and many did more than just offer shelter. 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. After Norway was invaded in 1940, Jan Baalsrud decided . He had only one boot, his soaked clothes were beginning to freeze, and he didnt have any provisions. Toftefjorden, on the island of Rebbenesya, where the dramatic escape began, is uninhabited today. He married an American woman, started a family, and served as Chairman of the Norwegian Disabled Veterans Union. TODAY, FURUFLATEN IS STILL very small, with about 250 people. After a long struggle to learn to walk without his toes, Baalsrud eventually was sent to Norway as an agent at his request. Like many other boys of his time, he came from modest means - the son of an instrument maker. The house belonged to the sister of Marius Gronvoll, an active member of the resistance. The country would remain under their control until 1945. 14 Best Books About Norway. Germans surrendering to a Norwegian resistance leader, May 11th, 1945. The folk hero would not return to the fjords again until 1987. Out of Print--Limited Availability. Soaked, freezing, and missing one of his boots, he staggered up the beach and hid in a ravine. Trivia (4) He eventually found himself at the foot of Jaeggevarre, a 900m mountain near the Lyngen River. Suffering badly from exposure and snowblindness, he wandered towards the foot of Mt. Ballsruds ashes are buried in a grave in Manndalen that he shares with one of the local men who helped him escape. 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. A German patrol boat attacked their ship. by David Howarth, Stuart Langton, et al. Norway wanted to stay neutral, but Britain wanted Norway to join its blockade of Germany and to transport British goods at cheap rates. His headstone is modestly situated next to the fence by the entrance to the churchyard, and is no different from any of the other headstones, except for the inscription: Thank you to everyone who helped me to freedom in 1943. The rudder of the MS Bratholm is also on display. Staying silent about helping Baalsrud took a toll on the Gronvoll family. He soon went to Scotland to help train other Norwegian patriots, who were going to enter Norway to continue the fight against the Germans. Baalsrud had no choice but to trust them. Tragically, that too would fail. Jan Baalsrud is a well known Celebrity. Baalsrud was handsome, as Dagmar recalls, her face reddening at the memory. sex or gender. Espen Alnes Journalist. It was during this time, while he lay behind a snow wall built around a rock to shelter him, that Baalsrud amputated nine of his toes to stop the spread of gangrene. He was sure he would be next. The annual Jan Baalsrud March takes place in late July each year. Baalsrud was appointed honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire by the British. The WWII Survival Story of Jan Baalsrud This Norwegian Commando Escaped the Nazis, Swam Through Icy Water, Survived an Avalanche, and Amputated His Own Toes Written by Patrick McCarthy on June 2, 2019 In This Article A Compromised Operation Jan Baalsrud's Escape Staying Mobile The Situation Worsens Recovery and Return to Norway A small, discreet museum in Furuflaten commemorates Baalsruds story. He and a group of soldiers successfully destroyed a German air control tower on the evening of March 29, 1943. A few feet away is a stuffed fox, with a paper sign hanging around its neck.