At the institutions, there was a crying shortage of the most basic equipment, and the nurses had to improvise and prioritize hard. In addition, many made a militant effort – with and without traditional weapons.
Kept prisoners away from the Gestapo
The hospitals were an arena where resistance could be waged because they were not subject to the same control as the rest of society. In some departments, it became an important nursing task to find ways to get the patient to be in worse shape, but without suffering serious injury, so that the hospital stay could be extended.
Ward IV at Ullevål Hospital functioned during large parts of the occupation as a reception for prisoners. Margit Holthe was an older sister at the ward, and in “Alle Kvinners Blad” in 1945 referred to the prison ward as “a little paradise”. Here, nurses and doctors collaborated to induce fever, unconsciousness and vomiting to keep the prisoners away from the Gestapo. Holthe himself was subjected to repeated harsh interrogations and escaped to Sweden in 1943.
Around 60 nurses served in hospitals and nursing homes in Great Britain. In Norway, nurses were also involved in armed defense. In the first instance, it was an organized and hidden collection of sanitary materials and equipment.
Nazis took over NSF
The Norwegian Nurses Association (NSF) was put under commissar management in the war years 1941 to 1945. The Nazis took over the organization in the summer of 1941, and Signe Kahrs Budde was appointed as leader. During that period, the association’s articles of association were set aside.
In 1941, Budde, at the suggestion of the Women’s Shepherd, granted NOK 1,500 from the association’s coffers to support the sending of sisters for sanitary service in Finland. The management’s core area was to enlist sisters for German service on the Eastern Front.
Fear of infection
The nurses found their own ways of creating problems for the occupying power: An example from Finnmark is that they played on the respect for infectious diseases. At a hospital in Pasvikdalen, the soldiers were kept away by a nurse hanging a sign on the wall. “Tuberculosis” it said.
Sources: Ole Georg Moseng and Ellen Cathrine Lund: Norwegian Nurses’ Association through 100 years and Kari Melby: Call and struggle
The article is a revised version of an article which stood in print in Sykepleien in 2012.
