Speaker 1: All right, we'll started all right three to two one. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is William Ramsey. Bocome to William Ramsey Investigates on
Speaker 1: Today Show. Have a very special guest. His name is
Speaker 1: Kurt Blurstad and he published in twenty nineteen a book
Speaker 1: that I read, a really fascinating book. The title of
Speaker 1: the book is Occupied, a novel based upon a true story,
Speaker 1: and his website is www k u rt PLO r
Speaker 1: sta d dot com. But this is a family story
Speaker 1: that he wrote and takes place in Norway. But he
Speaker 1: can talk more about that. So, Kurt, are you there.
Speaker 2: Yes, I am William, and thank you for having me
Speaker 2: on the show today.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Well, thanks for gring to the interview. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about kind of your family? You have a kind
Speaker 1: of a multi or an international family background. Can you
Speaker 1: talk about that background and what led you to put
Speaker 1: their stories together in this book Occupied.
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, obviously my father is from Norway. But when
Speaker 2: I say that he was born in Brooklyn, New York
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty nine, with the depression, he and his brother,
Speaker 2: mother and father moved back to Norway to the family
Speaker 2: farm with their grandparents at the age of two. And
Speaker 2: so when I would ask my father, you know, are
Speaker 2: you an American and are you a Norwegian. He'd say, well,
Speaker 2: I'm a Norwegian American says I'm an American because I
Speaker 2: was born there. But I really spent my entire childhood
Speaker 2: and teenage years growing up in Norway and didn't come
Speaker 2: back until I was seventeen because of the war. And
Speaker 2: the war really split their family. I mean they all
Speaker 2: went back to Norway. And then as things got better
Speaker 2: and the depression got better and in the United States,
Speaker 2: my grandfather decided to come back try to get established again,
Speaker 2: make some money, and make enough money to bring his
Speaker 2: entire family back with him. The problem with that was
Speaker 2: the Germans didn't necessarily have the same plan as they did,
Speaker 2: and then invaded Norway before my father, brothers, and grandmother
Speaker 2: could come back. So they were split during the war,
Speaker 2: and it, you know, lent to a lot of interesting stories.
Speaker 2: As a child growing up, my father would say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, I had to ski to school and do
Speaker 2: all those things, and you know I had to work
Speaker 2: every day and just my life. You know, it was fun,
Speaker 2: but it was a lot of hard work growing up.
Speaker 2: It's nothing like it is now. As you would explain
Speaker 2: to me that you know you've got it easy. You
Speaker 2: know things are easy on the kids these days, and
Speaker 2: so you know, you listen to it as a child
Speaker 2: and you think, okay, yeah, it's like every other's father
Speaker 2: has the same stories. I skied both ways uphill the
Speaker 2: school and it was terrible weather and blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and you know, it goes on. And it wasn't until
Speaker 2: I got to be in my twenties that I maybe
Speaker 2: really appreciated it when I would hear my grandmother talk
Speaker 2: about the stories and things that happened. And this as
Speaker 2: a child when we would go over is nothing anybody
Speaker 2: spoke about. None of them spoke about the occupation, the
Speaker 2: war it happened. They all kind of were very close
Speaker 2: to the vest with things that happened. They didn't want
Speaker 2: to say. What I learned later was some really terrible things,
Speaker 2: and I understand why they didn't want to share it
Speaker 2: to me or share it with me as a child
Speaker 2: or as a as a young teenager.
Speaker 1: Right, and so what was your father's name?
Speaker 2: My father was Trigva, Trigva Paul Bloorstad and so.
Speaker 1: His brother to brother and sisters.
Speaker 2: He had a large family, right, yeah, he had an
Speaker 2: older brother, tore Off, who was about a year and
Speaker 2: three months older, and then he had a younger brother, Odd,
Speaker 2: who was I want to say, about four years younger
Speaker 2: than him, and then a younger sister who I think
Speaker 2: is six years younger than he is. So, you know,
Speaker 2: growing up, he spent a lot of time with his
Speaker 2: brother because they were so close in age, and they
Speaker 2: just got paired together all the time, having to do chores,
Speaker 2: do everything. It was you and you and tore Off
Speaker 2: go do this, or you two go do that, and
Speaker 2: you know, very occasionally where they lit up and I think,
Speaker 2: you know, his brother was his best friend, I mean
Speaker 2: every even in the later years, they did a lot
Speaker 2: of things together. They were both in the American Legion,
Speaker 2: the same legion hall even though they both were drafted
Speaker 2: after World War Two and my father was sent to Korea,
Speaker 2: but my uncle, drafted a little earlier, was actually set
Speaker 2: back to Germany during the occupation on the reverse side,
Speaker 2: which he thought was very ironic that all these Germans
Speaker 2: had occupied my country for years and now I'm over
Speaker 2: here in Germany trying to help, you know, occupy them
Speaker 2: and get them back on their feet at least I
Speaker 2: guess for the West Germans, as the East German was
Speaker 2: still part of or controlled by Russia, right.
Speaker 1: So I mean there, you'd start off the book very early,
Speaker 1: when nineteen thirty six. So they're together, Trigva and Thoral
Speaker 1: are together. They're kind of young kids, but they're tasked
Speaker 1: with many respond abilities to kind of help out, kind
Speaker 1: of like at a farm environment. Can you talk about
Speaker 1: the stuff they had to do to kind of keep
Speaker 1: the household intact?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, So once my grandfather left and basically left
Speaker 2: them in charge at a very young age and said,
Speaker 2: you know, well you've got to help your mom out
Speaker 2: as much as you can, you know, And that's when
Speaker 2: she decided to go live with her mother, who was
Speaker 2: also alone because my dad's grandfather had died as a
Speaker 2: complication from the Spanish flu. And so they all kind
Speaker 2: of moved into one house just north of Vansa in
Speaker 2: southern Norway, and we're all living together in the one house.
Speaker 2: So it was my dad, his brothers and sister, his mom,
Speaker 2: and his grandmother. So there's six of them in a
Speaker 2: very small house, but they made it work. There was
Speaker 2: a lot of relatives living around, so they had lots
Speaker 2: of uncles and some cousins, although my dad and his
Speaker 2: brother were the oldest of the cousins and most of
Speaker 2: the cousins were much younger, so they got tasked with
Speaker 2: helping on the farms and doing a lot of the
Speaker 2: chores all around the house. So one of the jobs
Speaker 2: that they I write about early on is my dad's uncle,
Speaker 2: Tarled had the largest farm. He was the only son,
Speaker 2: and the way things were in Norway is the oldest
Speaker 2: son inherited the farm or whatever property, and so he
Speaker 2: had taken over the farm when he got married at
Speaker 2: I think nineteen and basically took his mom and bought
Speaker 2: another house down the road and set her up there,
Speaker 2: but really wanted to run the farm as a man
Speaker 2: and his family and start having children. And so my
Speaker 2: dad and uncle when they first got over there, he
Speaker 2: had a peat bog down at the bottom of the
Speaker 2: hill near the water, and the peat had to be
Speaker 2: cut every year and stacked and dried, and they basically
Speaker 2: used that for cooking because pete, once dried, is a
Speaker 2: little easier to regulate in a wood burning stove or
Speaker 2: in this case, a pete burning stove to cook with,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the wood that was used was
Speaker 2: used generally just to heat the farm, and so this
Speaker 2: was a very arduous job for You can imagine a
Speaker 2: ten year old and a twelve year old with my
Speaker 2: uncle down there cutting out large stacks of pete, and
Speaker 2: pete is cut with a long spade in about three
Speaker 2: foot sections that are six inch by six inch, and
Speaker 2: he's throwing them up on the on the ground because
Speaker 2: he's down on the hole cutting it. And then they're
Speaker 2: stacking them and sorting them out and moving them around
Speaker 2: and doing all that. And it's just a lot of
Speaker 2: backbreaking work of heavy things when you're a kid and
Speaker 2: you're lifting something that's forty pounds all day long and
Speaker 2: stacking it and stacking it. And I tried to reflect
Speaker 2: that really well in that chapter, that there was lots
Speaker 2: of hard work to do and they just did what
Speaker 2: they were told. In other words, this is just part
Speaker 2: of your life. You're going to do this. One day,
Speaker 2: you're going to help plant things. On other days you're
Speaker 2: going to help harvest. We need you to fish. Everybody
Speaker 2: fished in Norway. There's water everywhere, so there's fresh water
Speaker 2: fish and obviously saltwater fish. If you lived near the
Speaker 2: coast and had a boat or could get out, which
Speaker 2: my uncle did. He had a small rowboat for a lake,
Speaker 2: and then he had a friend who had a power
Speaker 2: boat at the time, which you know, there weren't many
Speaker 2: of those. Everything was really sailboats for the small boats
Speaker 2: and he would take them out occasionally fishing and that's just.
Speaker 1: You know, right, And there was no electricity, I think
Speaker 1: you said, in their house. So yeah, rural Pete, you know,
Speaker 1: definitely different. So now I think you wrote that your
Speaker 1: mom said it burnt better, it was better for cooking.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so pretty young guys. A lot of things
Speaker 1: going on around there, and kind of rumblings of strange
Speaker 1: happenings in Europe around that time, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a discussion in their school that they
Speaker 2: went to mister Dunwold, who was the teacher, and you
Speaker 2: can imagine it was a one room schoolhouse with all
Speaker 2: of the older grades went together at one time, and
Speaker 2: it was kind of a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule and
Speaker 2: then the younger children went Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, so
Speaker 2: they did split them up somewhat. But he said, I'm
Speaker 2: in a classroom with you know, maybe twenty other students
Speaker 2: and they're in five different grades. And in Norway they
Speaker 2: really were only expected to go to school until eighth grade,
Speaker 2: so it was optional to keep going to school. And
Speaker 2: of course my uncle and my dad, because of the war,
Speaker 2: both stopped at eighth grade and got whatever job they
Speaker 2: could later on that actually paid money. But a lot
Speaker 2: of the jobs they had had as younger children, or
Speaker 2: just volunteer or day labor on other people's farms, helping them,
Speaker 2: you know, pick apples for the few people that had
Speaker 2: apple trees, or digging up potatoes, or helping run the horse,
Speaker 2: you know, to plow up a field. So the town
Speaker 2: of Vonsa down in town did have electricity, but as
Speaker 2: you got up the hill where they lived and just
Speaker 2: maybe a mile and a half out of town, electricity
Speaker 2: didn't go any farther. So they had a well with
Speaker 2: a bucket and an outhouse and oil lamps if they
Speaker 2: could get oil in a couple of candles, and it
Speaker 2: was really you know, I just want to say, for
Speaker 2: this country you're talking back in the late eighteen hundreds
Speaker 2: is probably what it was more like than it was
Speaker 2: being nineteen thirties or nineteen forty.
Speaker 1: Right, And a lot of bartering. You said there was
Speaker 1: trading going on. People would exchange items like the old
Speaker 1: days without currency.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and especially more so they did a lot
Speaker 2: of that before the war. So my great grandmother had
Speaker 2: a spinning wheel and her one of her I think
Speaker 2: it was her sister, so it would be her son
Speaker 2: in law had a sheep farm and they would harvest
Speaker 2: the wool and she would take a lot of it
Speaker 2: and she would spin it into different yarns and then
Speaker 2: sell it back, you know. So he would she would
Speaker 2: buy the wool and then spin it and then sell
Speaker 2: it back, and she was supposedly one of the best
Speaker 2: spinners in the town, if you can imagine in a
Speaker 2: town that maybe has two hundred people. I mean, but
Speaker 2: it did leave, we go to Vonsa, some of it
Speaker 2: would go to Farsen, and Farsen was maybe another mile
Speaker 2: and a half from Vonsa to the east, but also
Speaker 2: on the coast.
Speaker 1: And Vince's almost kind of like if you look at
Speaker 1: Norway like a tear drop, it's kind of right in
Speaker 1: the center, in the very middle at the bottom.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's almost the most southern point of Norway.
Speaker 1: So you're close to all of the Feord like inlets
Speaker 1: and things like that. Can you talk about kind of
Speaker 1: what like what happened to kind of nineteen thirty nine
Speaker 1: is the news that was going through Norway and what
Speaker 1: people were kind of talking about in the local community
Speaker 1: when you know, is the Germans kind of were on
Speaker 1: the march.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't notice, you know, what was going on,
Speaker 2: and like everything else, they declared to be neutral, but
Speaker 2: obviously the Germans didn't care. So they knew what happened
Speaker 2: in Poland and how quick that was. And they'd seen
Speaker 2: a lot of German ships because obviously going south of
Speaker 2: Norway in between Denmark and there's really only one way
Speaker 2: out for the ships to get out, and they didn't
Speaker 2: notice more and more fishing boats, which maybe weren't necessarily
Speaker 2: fishing boats, but that's how they were gathering information. And
Speaker 2: I think there's also one chapter in my book right
Speaker 2: before the war starts where they go out and their
Speaker 2: uncle Tarl notices this that these ships are doing some
Speaker 2: weird things really close to the shore, and he goes
Speaker 2: to the doctor, who I learned later on was part
Speaker 2: of the mill Org later on, and they were sharing
Speaker 2: information with the British and other countries to say look,
Speaker 2: we think this is coming. It's coming, And then of
Speaker 2: course it did. Three days later, the Germans actually invaded
Speaker 2: Oslo and I think Bergen and christian Son and a
Speaker 2: lot of the larger coastal cities on southern Norway. And
Speaker 2: they didn't really get to Vonsa until about a week
Speaker 2: later because they just figured, you know, little towns like this,
Speaker 2: we'll just well.
Speaker 1: Right, And there was kind of a there was a
Speaker 1: significant battle for the Battle of Oslo you talk about
Speaker 1: in the book, like there were holdouts and battles and
Speaker 1: the old fortress and the king and everything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as the German ships came up, they really just
Speaker 2: kind of came up nonchalantly. Is the best way I
Speaker 2: can put it. Is they didn't really have their guns out,
Speaker 2: they weren't ready. They just figured they were just going
Speaker 2: to cruise right in and then at the last minute
Speaker 2: shoot a you know, bomb and do a bunch of things,
Speaker 2: and just figured the Norwegians weren't ready. Well. Fortunately, the
Speaker 2: commander of one of the islands in the fjord just
Speaker 2: south of Norway, and I can't remember the name at
Speaker 2: this point, he was there with maybe ten percent staff,
Speaker 2: thirty percent staff and just could see this coming and knew, okay,
Speaker 2: this is not good. There's no reason they should be
Speaker 2: this far up. It was an old torpedo battery in
Speaker 2: an island, and they did have some surface guns, but
Speaker 2: they fortunately were able to get off two or three
Speaker 2: torpedoes and sunk the main ship coming up the fjord
Speaker 2: at that time, and it caused the rest of the
Speaker 2: ships to retreat, which then gave the Norwegians two or
Speaker 2: three days of really just battling the paratroopers, which they
Speaker 2: could hold off because there weren't as many as you
Speaker 2: would think. They were just so confident they were just
Speaker 2: going to land and move people off the ship and
Speaker 2: just take over the city. Now, this did allow the
Speaker 2: king the ability and the governing body to kind of
Speaker 2: retreat and decide what to do. So the Battle of
Speaker 2: also was a very large battle for Norway at the time,
Speaker 2: and if you can imagine that, you know, we think
Speaker 2: of communication as things that happened instantly now, but back
Speaker 2: then it really took Vonsa about a week to hear
Speaker 2: about the Battle of Oslo, and even then it was
Speaker 2: you know, pieces and parts and what to believe, what
Speaker 2: not to believe, But obviously because it was such a
Speaker 2: great story of the Norwegians fighting off the Germans that
Speaker 2: that was the you know, the truth, and it was
Speaker 2: the easy story to believe, and so that's the one
Speaker 2: that I depict.
Speaker 1: And that was kind of like the beginning because Hakon
Speaker 1: the king moved went to England, so that was like
Speaker 1: the preliminary times where the relationship between Norway during the war,
Speaker 1: Norway and England kind of began at that.
Speaker 2: Time, right, Yes, that that was really I mean, they'd
Speaker 2: had relationships, but the English really did help out a
Speaker 2: lot by allowing the king and his family and other
Speaker 2: people to go there and decide how to reorganize their troops.
Speaker 2: I do think it took I'm trying to remember if
Speaker 2: the king, it took about a month I think before
Speaker 2: he actually left. They went up through Sweden through the
Speaker 2: middle of Norway, which you can imagine, you know, the
Speaker 2: coast seems like it might be easy to conquer, but
Speaker 2: there's lots of parks in the central part of Norway
Speaker 2: that I don't think the Germans ever went to. If
Speaker 2: it just was so remote they didn't need it, if
Speaker 2: it wasn't on a waterway. Most of the times I
Speaker 2: don't think the Germans were really worried about what was
Speaker 2: going on in other parts because it was so rural
Speaker 2: and so remote.
Speaker 1: Right, and so they kind of just started moving in.
Speaker 1: I was surprised to hear in your book that they
Speaker 1: brought their whole prison slave camp sensibilities all the way
Speaker 1: to Norway. That was surprised to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they really looked at it as the Atlantic border.
Speaker 2: They figured if they could control the whole coast of Norway.
Speaker 2: Their iron supply was really coming from the northern part
Speaker 2: of Sweden, and they shipped a lot of it around.
Speaker 2: I think there were some trains coming down also that
Speaker 2: were picking it up on the other port, but a
Speaker 2: lot of it was moved by ship, and so they
Speaker 2: really wanted to protect their supply lines for materials like that.
Speaker 2: That really helped them produce all their airplanes and their
Speaker 2: tanks and everything else that they needed for the war.
Speaker 1: Right, So it was like a flat out invasion, not
Speaker 1: expect I mean, with the sensibility at that time, they
Speaker 1: weren't expecting to be invaded.
Speaker 2: Right, No, not at all. In fact, I did some
Speaker 2: research and it was kind of like, yes, Norway was neutral,
Speaker 2: but at one point the English thought about I don't
Speaker 2: want to say attacking them, but going in and saying, look,
Speaker 2: we want to move in, We want you to be
Speaker 2: part of the war, we want to use your land
Speaker 2: because you're you're in a strategic position to help stop
Speaker 2: the Germans from getting all these supplies. And the Germans
Speaker 2: basically invaded about five days prior to the British proposing
Speaker 2: that and saying look, we want to come in help
Speaker 2: defend you. And so I don't know if you know,
Speaker 2: the Germans knew what the British were doing, or if
Speaker 2: they just got lucky with their timing.
Speaker 1: Right, And so that was it. So your dad treatment
Speaker 1: was then working I think he was working in a
Speaker 1: what is it in a nursery or something during that time,
Speaker 1: earning extra money, and also started I mean I think
Speaker 1: it was I mean the dinner were all Germans started
Speaker 1: filtering through the town where he lived in Bonsa, Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my uncle was really lucky to get almost
Speaker 2: a full time job. But my dad, with work the
Speaker 2: way it was, had lots of one day a week
Speaker 2: jobs or two day a week sometimes. So he had
Speaker 2: jobs with mister Ellenis at the store which later became
Speaker 2: a central point for the EXU to gather information and
Speaker 2: disperse it. He had a job at a nursery, He
Speaker 2: had a job at a window factory for a while.
Speaker 2: He just had lots of odd jobs because anything to
Speaker 2: get food, which was scarce even when the war started,
Speaker 2: and became more scarce as the war went on, and
Speaker 2: the Germans just pretty much took everything they needed and
Speaker 2: left almost nothing. But with the strategic I guess being south,
Speaker 2: the Germans built an airfield which is still in operation.
Speaker 2: Obviously it's a little larger than it was, but it's
Speaker 2: not a commercial airfield by any means. It's still a
Speaker 2: small private airport. But when they built the airfield, they
Speaker 2: brought in all the prisoners and built a prison camp
Speaker 2: because they at that point had lots of prisoners from
Speaker 2: I guess Poland and Russia, And my dad said most
Speaker 2: of the prisoners were Polish, very few were Russian at
Speaker 2: the time, and used them to build everything. The prisoners
Speaker 2: built their own prison camp, then built the airfield, and
Speaker 2: then there was a lot of They put some caves
Speaker 2: or tunnels in the side of the mountains at the
Speaker 2: low end, and they brought buzz bombs over near the
Speaker 2: very end of the war and they were hiding buzz
Speaker 2: bombs in there and then launching them at night. So
Speaker 2: I don't know if they were launching into England because
Speaker 2: England was kind of a long shot and I'm not
Speaker 2: sure how far the buzz bombs could go, but I
Speaker 2: think it's possible they were, and that they might have
Speaker 2: also once D Day and the Allied forces came into France,
Speaker 2: might have used it to bomb the Allies in France too,
Speaker 2: once they'd come in with the buzz bombs. But he
Speaker 2: he did tell me one good story of he and
Speaker 2: his brothers and his sister sitting up on the hill
Speaker 2: just watching them at night, you know, launched the buzz bombs,
Speaker 2: because to them it was kind of like this huge
Speaker 2: fireworks nothing, that's something they've never seen before. So terrible
Speaker 2: as it was, it was kind of an interesting thing
Speaker 2: for him to talk about and say, well, it's just
Speaker 2: kind of amazing to see this, But yes, it was
Speaker 2: a terrible thing to happen.
Speaker 1: And that was kind of there were always that seemed
Speaker 1: like your dad and his brother were always kind of
Speaker 1: watching and observing things going on. That's how he got
Speaker 1: recruited your dad to watch for some of these meetings,
Speaker 1: Can you talk about what he did as kind of
Speaker 1: a watchman and what the XU was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the XCU really in normally there was the
Speaker 2: XU and there's the mill Org. And the mill Org
Speaker 2: was more of a military espionage blow things up, and
Speaker 2: the EXU was more of an information gathering for reconnaissance
Speaker 2: to say where do we see troop movements? What's going on?
Speaker 2: And then that would get pushed back. And then I
Speaker 2: believed the mill Org then use that information and shared
Speaker 2: it obviously with the Allies in Britain, and then to
Speaker 2: decide what to do internally as far as retaliation. He
Speaker 2: started out, I guess the problem. I guess his friend
Speaker 2: was killed for lack of a better term, by the
Speaker 2: Germans who had had the job before him. So Tour
Speaker 2: had the job, and he didn't know Tor had the
Speaker 2: job until he went to work one day and mister
Speaker 2: Ellenis kind of explained how things were and what Tour
Speaker 2: was really doing. And then I think it was doctor
Speaker 2: Halverson who actually recruited my father and said, look, I
Speaker 2: need a replacement. Well, my dad had been the watchman
Speaker 2: at the store for probably a year and a half
Speaker 2: prior to them for these secret meetings to just kind
Speaker 2: of say, Okay, somebody's coming, we need to go hide,
Speaker 2: or you need to you know, you need to change
Speaker 2: what you're doing. And that's really how it started. So
Speaker 2: then once he was given the job, which I think
Speaker 2: it was in the last year of the war, when
Speaker 2: he took it over, his house or his grandmother's house,
Speaker 2: sat at the top of a hill and he called
Speaker 2: it a mountain because it's maybe a thousand feet up
Speaker 2: but was the closest one to the airfield and the coast,
Speaker 2: and they were the last house on the road at
Speaker 2: the very top, so there was no reason to go
Speaker 2: any further. He would walk up to the top of
Speaker 2: the hill and from there he could see the airfield,
Speaker 2: what was going on the coast, and some ship movements
Speaker 2: from around the you know, the the western side down
Speaker 2: to the south, and he would just report on that
Speaker 2: and just say, this is what I saw today, this
Speaker 2: is what was going on. You know, these planes flew in,
Speaker 2: these flew out. This was an attack by the British,
Speaker 2: which a lot of times they knew because when the
Speaker 2: British attacked and tried to blow up the airfield, everybody
Speaker 2: knew about it. I mean, you know, bombs are going
Speaker 2: off and people are running around, but he would try
Speaker 2: to say how many planes he saw, or you know, note,
Speaker 2: what did the Germans do? Did they go hide in
Speaker 2: the cave, did they go over here? And there's that
Speaker 2: type of information I believe, when passed on, helped the
Speaker 2: Allies decide, Okay, maybe we should attack from this direction,
Speaker 2: or maybe we should attack from a really low profile
Speaker 2: so they don't see us coming, you know, stick right
Speaker 2: along the water, or bomb from really up high. There
Speaker 2: really weren't many German planes for retaliation. He did talk
Speaker 2: about one or two dog fights that happened, and there
Speaker 2: was because they were kind of mesmerized by it. It crashed,
Speaker 2: he said, maybe one hundred yards from one of the airplanes.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't until they were looking up in the
Speaker 2: air and saw the plane coming and getting larger and
Speaker 2: not really moving left or right or that they ran
Speaker 2: and he said, you know, it crashed on the hill
Speaker 2: maybe one hundred yards below us and was on fire.
Speaker 2: And it fortunately, in his opinion, it was a German
Speaker 2: plane that crashed and it was not a British plane,
Speaker 2: right you.
Speaker 1: And there were also kind of events that happened in
Speaker 1: Norway where there's commanders. Can you tell the story about
Speaker 1: televag and what happened with that?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: When so like in the Germans didn't bring just their
Speaker 1: concentration camp and also had media control as well. Can
Speaker 1: you talk about televag and media control and what happened?
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, they so Okay. When they came in,
Speaker 2: they took all the radios from everybody, every house, of
Speaker 2: which my grandmother commented, don't have a radio, we don't
Speaker 2: have electricity. But they really confiscated everything there could be
Speaker 2: for communication wise, radios, guns obviously, and then started their
Speaker 2: own propaganda and let out information. Is they needed to
Speaker 2: to say, you know, we're winning the war, you all
Speaker 2: are you know are losing. You need to surrender, you
Speaker 2: need to help us, You should give up now, stop
Speaker 2: fighting back, those kind of things, And it was really
Speaker 2: my dad got information from mister Dungvold, who he was
Speaker 2: pretty sure had a short wave radio and it was
Speaker 2: the local connection for the EXU to Britain and to
Speaker 2: other parts of Norway. And if it wasn't for him,
Speaker 2: I guess being the lookout, he probably wouldn't have gotten
Speaker 2: most of the information he did. Hear of because a
Speaker 2: lot of it was just tight lip. They didn't want
Speaker 2: people sharing the information because they didn't want to trace
Speaker 2: it back to who originally gave it to them. So
Speaker 2: a lot of the information that he learned about, let's
Speaker 2: just say the Telemark and the heavy water and the
Speaker 2: stories like that, or on the Shetland Bus, which was
Speaker 2: a a western town where there was a family in
Speaker 2: a town that shuttled people at night to England and
Speaker 2: back and brought over commandos and took Norwegians that had
Speaker 2: lots of information that needed the British wanted from them.
Speaker 2: And in that case, that story is when the Germans
Speaker 2: found out about the Shetland Bus, they went into the
Speaker 2: town and killed everybody, everybody, every male and every I
Speaker 2: want to say child. I think it was like twelve
Speaker 2: years and older and burned the entire town down. And
Speaker 2: it was things like that where those stories got out
Speaker 2: because the Germans wanted those stories to get out. It's like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know you're fighting back against us, We're just going
Speaker 2: to wipe out your entire town. And that was the
Speaker 2: fear my dad said his mother had, and a lot
Speaker 2: of the adults had. It's just no, don't do anything.
Speaker 2: Don't you dare, don't fight back, which is why he
Speaker 2: felt so guilty by helping. But he really just thought
Speaker 2: that his friend who had been killed by the Germans
Speaker 2: for helping, he just said, they're just so bloody. We
Speaker 2: have to fight back, we have to do something. But
Speaker 2: I've got to keep it a secret. I've got to
Speaker 2: make sure my mom never finds out about it. I
Speaker 2: got to make sure nobody finds out about it. And
Speaker 2: it was not really until his mom died that he
Speaker 2: even talked about anything like that. I mean, most of
Speaker 2: the stories the Germans were here and yeah, they took
Speaker 2: our food and they did this, you know, and we
Speaker 2: just were like sheep and we, you know, followed what
Speaker 2: they needed. When really he wasn't. He was one of
Speaker 2: I know many people. And later on from talking to
Speaker 2: I talked to an Arthur Hansen, who basically is the
Speaker 2: same age as my father, did the same things. And
Speaker 2: it's just how I think every town had someone like
Speaker 2: my father, or had an entire network. If you can
Speaker 2: imagine a town with maybe two hundred people, and I
Speaker 2: bet you twenty of them were helping in the town,
Speaker 2: between different connections, people doing different things, passing information, and
Speaker 2: then you get to a larger town. I'm sure it's
Speaker 2: the same way. Every town had to have a story
Speaker 2: like my father's. I was just lucky enough to get
Speaker 2: to write it down, and I hope, you know, people
Speaker 2: enjoy reading it and learning about it.
Speaker 1: But it's really fascinating. How talking about the story, how
Speaker 1: did your dad relate to this? You tell a story
Speaker 1: about him being up on the hill at a rock
Speaker 1: at importunate places. Can you tell how this got passed
Speaker 1: to you? The story?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the premise started long before that. My wife
Speaker 2: was doing genealogy and talking about her family, and her
Speaker 2: family on her mother's side is the last name of Stone,
Speaker 2: so William Stone and all these people, one of them
Speaker 2: signed the Declaration of Independence. And she had all these wonderful,
Speaker 2: interesting stories about all her relatives. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I can't go back quite as far as you,
Speaker 2: but my father had a pretty interesting life, you know,
Speaker 2: the way he grew up born in Brooklyn, depression, moves
Speaker 2: to Norway, has to help out comes and gets occupied
Speaker 2: by the Germans, you know, comes back, gets drafted, goes
Speaker 2: to Korea. I said, it's a pretty interesting life. And
Speaker 2: so I started writing down the one stories I could remember,
Speaker 2: and then to kind of confirm things, you know, because
Speaker 2: I'd mostly heard them from my father, I went and
Speaker 2: talked to his brother, I talked to his sister, and
Speaker 2: ninety percent of the time you get the same story.
Speaker 2: You obviously get a little different flare and a little
Speaker 2: different point of view. And it wasn't until I went
Speaker 2: to Norway with my father, after hearing all these stories,
Speaker 2: I said, well, Dad, I really want to visit these places.
Speaker 2: I want to see the house you grew up in,
Speaker 2: I want to see the town, the coastline. I want
Speaker 2: to see all these wonderful things. And we went and
Speaker 2: visited all the relatives, and the same thing. None of
Speaker 2: them talk a lot about the war other than it
Speaker 2: was a war. When we went to his grandmother's house
Speaker 2: and drove up in front of it, it was like
Speaker 2: he was fourteen years old again. He started speaking only
Speaker 2: in Norwegian, of which he had not taught any of us. Norwegian.
Speaker 2: Now we understood maybe just a little bit. And he's pointing,
Speaker 2: and he's looking, and he's got this great grit on
Speaker 2: his face, and he's just so ecstatic, and he starts
Speaker 2: running up the hill. If you can imagine my father
Speaker 2: at seventy running any of us at seventy running up
Speaker 2: the hill. It was flooring to me. It just surprised me.
Speaker 2: And he gets to the top of the hill and
Speaker 2: there's these large rocks sticking out of the ground and large,
Speaker 2: maybe three feet four feet tall, and he's looking over
Speaker 2: the coast and he's just quiet, and you can see
Speaker 2: down and you can see the airport the way it
Speaker 2: is now, and you can see the coastline and he's
Speaker 2: just looking over it. And then he kind of all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, it like hits them like, yeah, there
Speaker 2: were a lot of great memories here at this house,
Speaker 2: but then there was also a lot of things I
Speaker 2: did that were not great memories. And maybe we're against
Speaker 2: my mother. And there was such a strong family that,
Speaker 2: you know, growing up, even as a kid, for me,
Speaker 2: I'd go over and visit him. Whatever my grandmother said
Speaker 2: is what you did. You didn't say no, you didn't
Speaker 2: you didn't you know, fight back on anything. You just
Speaker 2: said yes, and you did it. And I'm sure that's
Speaker 2: how he was raised. And then to get to that
Speaker 2: age where you're fifteen and you have your own opinion
Speaker 2: and you think, okay, yes, everything my mom tells me
Speaker 2: to do, I want to do. But maybe she's not
Speaker 2: always right. She's got her reasons for we shouldn't fight back,
Speaker 2: we shouldn't do this because I want to keep the
Speaker 2: entire family safe. But every now and then, you know,
Speaker 2: he had to do what he thought was right, and that, really,
Speaker 2: I think is what hit him at the top of
Speaker 2: the hill, and you thought, you know, I did all
Speaker 2: these things, and yeah, he didn't kill anybody. He didn't,
Speaker 2: you know, do anything like you would think some of
Speaker 2: the great mill Oord people probably did fighting back. But
Speaker 2: he did what he could at his age to really
Speaker 2: just you know, help and give information. And he was
Speaker 2: lucky enough that he knew a lot of the people
Speaker 2: in town and they knew where he lived, and he
Speaker 2: was perfectly situated in a position to see everything from
Speaker 2: where he was as opposed to having to go down
Speaker 2: in town and walk around and maybe look a little
Speaker 2: more conspicuous.
Speaker 1: So it's a great story. So commend you for writing
Speaker 1: this book. Where's the best Place? I mean, it has
Speaker 1: excellent reviews on Amazon. Where's the best place people can
Speaker 1: get the book?
Speaker 2: Well, obviously Amazon, but it is for sale at Barnes
Speaker 2: and Noble and all the online bookstores in an ebook
Speaker 2: or in paperback.
Speaker 1: And you have a website too, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's Kurt Bloorstad dot com. And on the website
Speaker 2: I do have some personal interviews with my uncle where
Speaker 2: he talks a little bit about the war. Sometimes he
Speaker 2: talks about the dogfight. I could get him to open
Speaker 2: up more. When he was ninety, I think, is how
Speaker 2: old he is when I interview him, and his memory
Speaker 2: is still pretty good, you know. He would. I'd go
Speaker 2: often for an interview and ask him the same question
Speaker 2: just to make sure I'm getting the same answer every time,
Speaker 2: because I didn't want to think he's confusing it with
Speaker 2: something else. And even at ninety, a lot of those
Speaker 2: things he hit spot on every time he told me
Speaker 2: the story. And in fact, in one he started speaking
Speaker 2: in German and I said, now, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: speak Norwegian and Germans probably even less for me. He said, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. He says he was telling me a conversation
Speaker 2: he was having with the German soldier, and so he
Speaker 2: just went right into German telling me the story.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Yeah, so all that family history is there again.
Speaker 1: The website is Kurt bloreistart, k u rt boo r
Speaker 1: sta d dot com and the title of the book
Speaker 1: is Occupied, a novel based upon a true story by
Speaker 1: Kurt Bloorstain, published twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for Oh, thank you, William. You
Speaker 2: have a good day, you too, Take care, stay there.