A Forgotten Heroine of the Norwegian Resistance
by Norman Berdichevsky (August 2012)
She read the great classics of Shakespeare, Chaucer, contemporary British authors such as Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters as well as the great Scandinavian writers, Ibsen, Strindberg, and George Brandes, acquiring the university level education that had been denied to her. She published her first work at age 22 and twenty-two years later was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature!
She gave her Nobel Prize money away, 156,000 kroner, part of it going to a foundation established to help families with mentally disabled children. Later in 1940 she also sold her Nobel medal, giving the money to the relief effort for Finnish children after the outbreak of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union. Her books had long been banned in Germany for her outspoken criticism of Nazism and active defense of the Jews. After the death of her son Anders, she joined the Resistance movement but was strongly advised by Norwegian authorities to flee the country. After her departure, the Germans occupied her home and chopped up her writing desk.
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