Time and again we have to pinch ourselves in the arm and ask:
Is it really me who is here in a fully equipped unit and training in the middle of a foreign country?
Is it really me who recently crossed the border, homeless and hunted,
but with the hope of once again returning when others had freed our country?
70 years have passed since the Norwegian police troops received military training in Sweden.
14,000 Norwegians were part of "the forgotten army". But there are not many who are still alive.
A small group regularly travel to Sweden to visit the places where they were during the last three years of the war.
[Norwegian song]
There are memorials to Sweden's support to occupied Norway in many places in Sweden.
One of them is the mansion in Färna bruk, where Norwegian officers and soldiers trained in secret.
This stone was errected to honor the memory of the Norwegian police troops that were trained in Sweden during World War II. 2nd Field Battalion
At the Nordic Museum in Stockholm is a stone with the inscription:
"Norway would like to thank for the training of 14,700 police troops in Sweden during World War II."
In Kesäter, west of Stockholm, there is another plaque:
"During Hitler-Germany's occupation of Norway in 1940-1945, 50,000 Norwegians fled from dictatorship and violence to neutral Sweden."
Norway - Sweden
1940 - 1945
The Police Troops
From 15 June 1942 to the end of the war Kesäter was a reception center for Norwegian refugees.
Geographically, the neutral island was a blessing for the whole of Norway.
It was a blessing when peace came.
That we could get people into the country so quickly and easily.
Explorer Thor Heyerdahl was the coordinator in northern Norway ...
... when the police troops were operating in Finnmark during the last six months of the war.
He described the situation as follows:
"Officially, Sweden was neutral, but served as a safety valve for occupied Norway."
"It was of invaluable help for the refugees, especially with all the support behind the scenes."
For me it is difficult to judge the Swedes.
Unless they had been neutral, we would have had nowhere to go.
Then we would not have existed.
I count Sweden as my salvation country. Sweden is close to my heart.
That Sweden was there - a large, neutral country that simply was freedom.
As soon as you crossed the glade in the forest, came over the mountain, you were in the land of freedom.
My father had Norway's longest courier route as an agent for XU.
He crossed the border many times and praised his good luck that Sweden existed.
The border is a couple thousand kilometers long and impossible to monitor in its entirety.
I have stuck my neck out and stated that Hjemmefronten ...
... was more fortunate than any other resistance movement in Europe almost, against Nazi Germany.
Because you had this long border with Sweden, and could build up the forces and get help in other ways.
Sweden connected Hjemmefronten with the government in London.
Many went here on holidays. Max Manus and others came here and rested for a while.
Then they went home for new missions.
Sønsteby made some forty visits, but never under his own name.
For many active resisters, Sweden was a sort of breathing space and a fall-back base
In the beginning I had a very vague idea of the whole story.
The concept of "the forgotten army" came up first when I talked to veterans and understood how forgotten they felt.
[Newsreel] It cools down in the evening, but the steam is hot on the pioneers who are working hard.
I think it is important for both Sweden and Norway.
Here at Mälsåker we use it as a lever to give school children knowledge about what happened during the war.
That there was cooperation and solidarity between Norway and Sweden despite the official image of neutrality.
That there is a counterpart to other very known concepts as "german trains" ...
... and different conditions that prevailed during the first years of the war.
The relationship between Norway and Sweden was characterized by the Swedish neutrality during the first two years of the war.
Sweden tried to avoid confrontation with Hitler's Germany,
... and thus the neighbor relationship became strained to say the least.
Not many Norwegians saw any advantages to Sweden keeping the neutrality, at least not to begin with.
Sweden received 183,000 refugees during the war. Almost a third were Norwegian citizens.
In the autumn of 1942, the influx of refugees really began to assume proportions.
There were persecutions of Jews and raids of a lot of ...
... Milorgs district organizations and other civil resistance organizations.
The need to help refugees, especially Norwegian Jews,
... led to the establishment of secret escape routes where volunteer border pilots risked their lives.
Odd Gustavsen and his father, rescued people from falling into the clutches of the Nazis.
We picked them up at Klemetsby on the west side of the lake. We just rowed across the lake.
I rowed sometimes, Dad rowed sometimes. We changed the up at the farm.
It was probably mostly my father that rowed and I went into the forest.
When the Norwegian Jews were to be captured, many of Europe's Jews were already dead.
On 26 October, Jewish men over 15 years were arrested.
My father was among those who managed to hide the day before.
When they were arrested, it was 40% of Norwegian Jews that were arrested.
The 60% who managed to survive did it because Sweden was not occupied by Germany.
Hjemmefronten immediately organized the escape of the rest of the Levin family.
After much drama and with the help of border pilots and other volunteers they got over the border to neutral Swedish soil.
Suddenly six steady Swedes in white military sheepskin jackets come and brings us to a hut.
There the radio is on.
Mother hears how the Swedish archbishop in Stockholm Cathedral prays for the Norwegian Jews.
The news of the Danube had of course reached Sweden.
It was thus the first Sunday after 26 November.
That is what she hears. Then she breaks down.
She knew we were safe, the husband too. He did not know the same about us.
Of them, there were at least 280 children and young people who survived and returned after the war.
They would not have survived, they would have ended up at Auschwitz ...
.. had it not been for Sweden and the border with Sweden.
They had also not managed without everyone who helped them,
... it was death penalty for helping Jews flee.
We had survived. In our family it was very many who did not survive.
Most of mother's and father's relatives, including her 19 year brother,
... was aboard the Danube. None of them came back home.
Among the thousands of refugees were Gunnar Helset and his father Olaf.
Olaf was later responsible for the police forces' training.
He was registered as refugee number 17,326, 13 May 1943.
I traveled to Setskog ... I think it was in 2004 or in 2005.
So it was ... 60 years after World War II
... to find out if anyone in the family was alive.
I quite quickly found the family who had put us up the night at the border.
The family Malnes in Setskog. I found the grandson and son, who was still alive at the time.
The father, who had followed us through the woods, lay in the cemetery.
That is why I went there, to lay flowers on the grave in May.
The family Malnes still have a smallholding at the Swedish border.
The family was one of those who saved thousands of lives by piloting through rugged terrain and by providing food and shelter.
But after a while the Nazis got wind of the operation and Johan were himself forced to escape across the border.
In Sweden, he reported to the police forces.
I can tell you that it often arrived refugees in Östervallskog, to Kroken, as it is called.
The one that lived in the back of Kroken was Betsy Bryntesson.
She had a barn with two cows.
It is said that one Christmas morning when she came from the barn and had milked the cows, the house was full of refugees.
But mother Betsy's way was that no refugee would be with her without getting something in their stomach.
It was probably mostly gruel or porridge, because she had cows and milk.
The Swedish defense came to realize that mother Betsy did a tremendous job.
They asked her if she could give the refugees food take responsibility for it, and serve coffee.
We figured out that those who came to Kroken, where mother Betsy lived, after this conversation, totaled 3500 people.
She made sure everyone got food.
Not only on the Norwegian side a network of spies, border pilots and couriers formed.
The traffic was important for information and supplies and for the funding of the resistance movement in Norway.
I experienced in my home that we had a little strange relationship because my grandfather lived a mysterious life.
He never spoke about what he did. I began to spy on him.
Eventually I came to realize that he was working for Norway, the Norwegian Hjemmefronten.
Goods came home to us.
They were there a few days, and one night they were gone.
He often sat and listened to the radio.
When he had heard the news he reacted like: "I must be off tonight."
Each week there came a sack from London by plane to Stockholm, and then train to Arvika.
Ola Olsson in Skillingmark was responsible for the sack.
He picked up the bag in Arvika and took it home.
When the code came on the radio, that he courier activities would start, he took the bag and walked over to Ekeheia.
And then it went ahead with another courier to Oslo.
In the bag were six fish-ball cans.
Each can contained NOK 100,000.
After Nazi Germany's defeat at Stalingrad Hitler's top manager in Norway Josef Terboven announced a new law.
Norwegian young people would work for the occupying power.
The alternatives were forced labor in Germany or northern Norway, or to escape to Sweden.
"The labor law can be seen as the hardest blow that hit Norway's people since the German attack in 1940," ...
... said Norwegian diplomat Jens Bull to the Swedish Secretary of State Erik Boheman in April 1943.
The stream of refugees increased significantly when the Germans would register the youth.
They would force the Norwegian youth to serve.
The German plan was that it would be a source to recruit from to military units.
It succeeded, a little, but most fled to Sweden.
Then we received a major injection of people in "their best military age".
I had just turned 20. I had hidden in Rørsetskauen at Skoger outside Drammen, with some others.
I was drafted into labor service.
I did not report for duty. I did not want to serve the Germans.
In mid-January we were asked to go to Østbanen.
There we were met by a border pilot. I had my cousin and a friend of his with me.
We took the train from Oslo to Minnesund at Mjøsa.
There we left the train and our long ski trip to Sweden began.
On 30 November the same year, the occupying power struck again.
The university would be closed and the students arrested.
The Swedish government reacted sharply. Many students tried to hide from the Nazis and flee to Sweden.
Those who came one by one were first gathered in the middle of Sweden, in Kjesäter.
The Norwegian government made a barrack town of the manor.
They took care of themselves.
Now they got refugee numbers and stood under Norwegian administration.
Solemn gatherings in front of the castle. For several years it was 30, 60, 100 a day.
They were only a few days at Kjesäter, then they became the responsibility of the refugee office.
The idea of a Norwegian police school in Sweden was first launched by the Norwegian Minister of Justice Terje Wold in London, 1942.
But all did not agree. One of them was the Swedish organizer Harry Söderman who considered it was way to early.
Harry Söderman is buried near Kjesäter.
Among police forces veterans he is seen as a hero for his efforts to plan and implement the education of the Norwegian police and soldiers.
A handful of people were involved, but Söderman was most crucial.
The work consisted of training a party in the war, and this on neutral Swedish soil.
Harry Söderman was a man with both a big heart and a big ego.
He had an enormous self-confidence.
He was industrious and put himself over rules and regulations.
Although he was a bureaucrat in the Swedish government service, he was unbureaucratic.
You can not take away from him that he was instrumental in the beginning ...
... when the police troops were created.
After all, Norway was only a small part of what he was doing, even if he afterwards thought it was the most important thing he had done in life.
Harry Söderman was pushy. He did not accept no for an answer.
Once, he wanted to meet with Swedish prime minister Per Albin Hansson.
The anteroom was full of people, including the defense minister.
Harry arrived at full speed. He was stopped: No, you can not go in to the Prime Minister. The defense minister is first.
Then Harry Söderman said: He can wait.
He was much more driven by his convictions than a regular official.
He lacked their sense of self-preservation.
He was an intellectual, though he was energetic.
As an intellectual you follow your convictions.
Harry Söderman was the driving force in the network that organized the training of the police troops.
Major Olaf Helset was hired to lead the daily work, which showed that the military training was a priority.
In Stockholm the legation had 30 offices, but everyone passed through the refugee office.
Father was sent there from London and was there until the police troops was approved.
It was in the works. Meanwhile, he was Norwegian refugee manager in Sweden.
One evening in February 1943, over dinner at Stadshuskällaren,
... Norwegian legation manager Olaf Svendsen and Harry Söderman ...
... developed a plan to train 50 Norwegian police officers.
The policemen would replace the Nazi police when the Germans lost the war.
The Norwegian government in London approved the plan on April 30 and granted NOK 20,000 for the establishment.
In the summer of 1943, no one knew what the Reserve Police was.
They had "health camps", which for once corresponded to the name.
Who knows, anyway? That trick surely is not only for health reasons?
And this ... some might call it sound.
The stream of refugees into Sweden during the second half of 1943 ...
... increased the pressure on the Swedish government to take action.
But it took the rest of the year before anything was done politically.
The formation of the police force had begun even though the Swedish government was not informed of its full range.
During the late summer 1,200 men had been recruited to the Norwegian police force under the direction of Harry Söderman.
It was probably both chance and the will of Söderman and Carl Semb combined.
But they had allies in the Swedish government.
One of the main was Gustav Möller, who was social security and police minister ...
... and also minister of the security police.
As social security minister, he was responsible for all the refugees who came to Sweden.
Möller was a positive man, and his secretary of state was Tage Erlander.
He was a great friend of Norway. That was why they were called police troops in the beginning.
Then they ended up under Gustav Möller.
If they had been called soldiers, they had come under defense minister Per Edvin Sköld ...
... who was of a more bureaucratic nature.
Maybe he was not as willing as Gustav Möller to turn a blind eye on what happened.
Möller together with some other Swedish ministers went behind the backs of the rest of government to begin with.
But it found out what was going on from the Swedish security service.
In the phase between health camps and police troops they had begun to build military camps.
Söderman brokered between profiteers and landowners for the purchase and lease of land.
Then the guys who would enter the armed forces or police forces started to cut down trees and build barracks.
The fact is that one barracks was built per day.
They were not built for eternity. It was important to get started quickly.
The work was driven on by events in the world and in Norway.
They took liberties and began to build barracks without planning permission.
"Revolver Harry" bought weapons on the open market.
They put themselves over laws and regulations. As was discovered later.
It became a hot potato in the government.
[Norwegian song]
We did not get any weapons. It was a long time until then.
We had wooden bludgeons when we stood guard.
We had guards and changing of the guard, as in the military.
More and more camps were established around Sweden to train new police officers.
With time, it became a well-oiled system that received the refugees.
Söderman believed that the police should be armed, and applied to the secretary of state Tage Erlander ...
... to buy 1000 submachine guns, 750 Mauser rifles and 750 pistols.
The Norwegian government in London allocated NOK 7.5 million for training and equipment.
The Swedish Government had neither approved weapons nor barracks ...
... when Söderman handed out weapons in the camps. He liked to take chances.
On November 3, defense minister Per Edvin Sköld stopped all weapon distribution to the police troops.
By then Söderman had spent 139,000 Norwegian kroner.
Next, construction of the barracks was stopped.
But on November 19 the consul general of Sweden in Oslo, Claes Westring, sent a report to the ministry in Stockholm.
It stated that the rumors about police training had turned the Norwegian public opinion in favor of Sweden.
It started small. A year ago we were on a 14-day health camp for vaccination.
Then quietly small detachments began practicing in Gottröra.
We hid our weapons under the uniform if civilians came.
In November-December this will reach the government.
They have a cabinet meeting with the King as chairman.
There is a formal government decision that they will help the Norwegians.
But not as far as they themselves wanted.
They regulate the number of camps, the time in the camps, how many in each camp.
The troops are police forces that will move into Norway only when the Germans have capitulated.
They will help to create law and order.
They should not come in combat with the Germans.
Around the same time the news of the police troops leaked to the Swedish press.
It led to a remarkably mild protest from the German authorities.
Despite the protest the barrack construction resumed in December.
On 5 January 1944 the training of troops began in earnest.
Much thanks to an unorthodox surprise politics of Harry Söderman and his Norwegian partners,
... colonel Ove Berg and surgeon general Carl Semb.
Maybe it was this policy that gave Söderman the name "Revolver Harry."
Now the shooting improves. With a little imagination, one can imagine everything.
But there is much left. They have much to learn.
The Swedish defense had nothing with the police troops to do before fall 1944.
Then the Swedish instructors came.
All inductee officers in Norway which did not participate in the Resistance was summoned to Sweden.
The police troops was started. I wanted to go to Sweden to join them.
Most preferably, I wanted to go to England and become a pilot.
But when I came to Kjesäter this was not possible.
I was sent to a regular camp on Älgberget, where there was a recruit school for newly arrived refugees.
I got refugee number 27,439.
We were issued Norwegian uniforms and weapons.
Already on June 23, Midsummer's eve, we got leave.
We went to Leksand and danced with Swedish girls around the maypole.
It was a fantastic experience after coming from Norway a week earlier.
Norwegian documents show that police troops would have three roles from the winter of 1944:
1. As combat troops in the event of a British invasion.
2. As guerrilla troops to support the invasion forces.
3. As police and security forces at the event of a German retreat or surrender.
The goal was to train 12-25 battalions of reserve police and 8 companies national police officers ...
... according to a letter sent May 11 1944 from Lieutenant Anders Dedekam at the Norwegian legation in Stockholm.
You have to admire the Norwegians' behavior.
Incredible. With so many people.
It could very well have caused social conflicts ...
... between 2500 refugees who came to a community with 1800 permanent residents. It was not so.
A historian has written a book about it. It is quite remarkable, it could have been the other way around.
The relationship with the Swedes, we lived in Baggböle out in the sticks.
They came into the families because they had fiancees and wives with them who was not allowed to live in the camps.
They were lodgers at the farmers.
It of course created lifelong friendships.
We were very close to the locals.
They showed that they were happy to have us there.
When the Norwegians came with their two battalion camps the church was once again filled every Sunday.
The park, on the slope up here, was the prelude to a continuation in the church with 40 weddings a year.
Marriages were entered here in the church.
Göran von Knorring writes about in his book with some emphasis.
He was impressed by the numbers.
I think there was a strong camaraderie in the camps between different ages.
Normally, when men are conscripted for military training they are all the same age.
Here they range from young men, "gutter", to younger middle-aged men.
It became quite a familiar community in the camps that gave them a special touch.
We lived so healthy and were active all the time.
Aid from Sweden was necessary, not least in order to carry out a sabotage with great symbolic value.
On January 15 1945 the German troop transport ship Danube was sunk in the Oslo fjord.
The ship had been used to deport Norwegian Jews to extermination camps in November 1943.
On one of the explosives saboteurs wrote a thank you message to "The office at 32".
That is, the Norwegian legation in Stockholm on Skeppargatan 32.
After the mission the saboteurs went to Sweden.
They rested on the tobacco factory owner Johan H Andresen's mansion Björkvik in Östergötland.
Andresen had himself been forced to flee from Norway.
The police troops waited eagerly to take part in the liberation of Norway.
From the continent came good news. The invasion of Normandy in the summer of 1944 had taken place.
The allies now marched eastward to inflict Hitler a final defeat.
Sweden's top officers have shown great kindness and arranged this exercise.
The understanding of our cause which thus become clear will we Norwegians never forget.
Norwegian maneuvers in Dalarna
Two large military exercises showed how extensive the training had been.
They were conducted with Swedish support and showed the great need for trained Norwegian officers.
Norwegian reserve police officers held field exercises in early December 1944 in northeastern Dalarna.
The strength exceeded 5 000 men.
The terrain was similar to Österdalen in Norway and the Norwegian "gutterna" could feel almost like home.
During the summer and autumn of 1944 there was talk of sending the police troops to Russia ...
... to participate in the liberation of Finnmark.
The mood in the camp was marked by the joy of the Russian successes and excitement to finally be able to participate in combat.
Camp life in the forest was given its atmosphere of that here were men from Norway all areas.
Dalbygdernas dialect with smooth oslo Norwegian, soft guttural sörländska with möremål, dialects from Trøndelag and Nordland.
At the fires and around the food they were like a reunited family, joked and told stories ...
... traditional for soldiers, but with an adventurous tone as in Asbjörnsen.
A 91-year-old man in the parish costume talking to a Norwegian officer:
"Good to see you practice, so you can do some good."
Tomorrow is the last day of the exercise. This is the exercise leaders.
Here is also Söderman, Swedish head of the police camps.
The goal was to provide the forces weapons and training so that they could fulfill their mission.
Both as police and soldiers at the advance into Norway after a German surrender.
Even out in the open ground it goes fast when the horn signals cease-fire.
So it was all over.
Good to throw away the packing and take a smoke.
We could have continued a while further if it had been for real.
Nice to go down to the stream and wash away the sweat and toil. But when will it be for real?
A force developed that has since been golden for Norway.
They wanted to fight in a way. But they did not get to.
We needed to go to Kirkenes, and fast. The Russians stood at Kirkenes and Varanger.
The Russians were the first allies to liberate parts of Norway in the autumn of 1944.
They attacked the Germans in Finnmark October 18 at 13:50 ...
... but without having informed the Norwegian government in London.
In the evening of October 24 the Russians took Kirkenes.
The Germans were forced to retreat to Lyngen and burned everything in their path.
There was absolutely no sense that there should be 14,000 to 15,000 Norwegian soldiers in Sweden ...
... that wants to participate in the liberation of northern Norway but who do not get the opportunity.
The Russians had contacted the Norwegian government in London as early as 1942.
When the police troops reached a certain range, of 10 000 men in 1944,
... it is possible to send them to Murmansk.
Norwegian authorities were betting that Russians would not liberate Finnmark.
One notices among servicemen in Stockholm and London ...
... that they would rather have the Germans stay in Finnmark than the Russians get there.
The suspicion was that the Russians would not leave.
When the attack comes, the Norwegian authorities are completely unprepared.
They do nothing actively to get Norwegian soldiers to Murmansk.
Eventually they give way to the pressure, especially from the police troops themselves.
"The liberation fight is underway! Why can not we be deployed?"
The legation in Stockholm announced that the police troops would be deployed in those parts of Norway,
... which are not occupied by the Germans. But first they have to have approval from the Swedish authorities.
Later in November came a communique from the Norwegian and Swedish authorities.
A group of police troops would immediately be sent to Kirkenes.
The situation was critical, especially for the civilian population.
Foreign minister Trygve Lie contacted the US embassy in Stockholm for assistance with troop transports from Sweden to Kirkenes.
The assignment went to the Norwegian-American aviator Bernt Balchen.
Until then, he had flown equipment and men between Britain and Sweden ...
... and dropped equipment by parachute to the Norwegian Hjemmefronten.
But it took time to get marching orders to the police troops.
Russian-born Alex Dobrowen had studied in Oslo,
... but fled to Sweden in 1943 when all students were arrested.
His parents had fled already in 1940.
The Norwegian authorities in Stockholm asked him if he could go with Kirkenes as an interpreter,
... since he spoke Russian, English and Norwegian.
"It is likely that there will be a campaign together with the Russians in Kirkenes."
It was very vague, the whole thing. Could I consider to be an interpreter?
On December 29 Harry Söderman waved goodbye to Balchen and his men on the first flight.
Now it's serious. Body and soul are trained for a necessary deed.
A little over a year ago they practiced with ratchetor. Now they turn homeward to use what they have learned.
On the first flight was also bishop Fjellby.
With the first police company came a field hospital with female nurses. They fraternized with the Americans.
Bishop Fjellby thought it was so terrible that he sent them all home.
Joe Ellis served as a radio operator and navigator from December 1944 to June 1945.
He participated in all flights to Kirkenes and Bodö ...
... where Norwegian police troops, equipment and supplies were flown in from Kallax, Sweden.
The day after the Norwegian troops were flown into Norway by US planes and with Swedish assistance ...
... the Nazi newspaper Folkets Dagblad wrote: "Sweden's neutrality is but a tale."
The first the companies are marching north where the road cuts across Finnish territory.
Here we cross the border between Finland and Norway.
Soon we see the splendid sight: The snow-covered country, so poor, so rich.
The fairytale land, where all distances are long except between happiness and misery, between tears and smile.
In over Finnmark with horses, reindeer, barrack parts and the most essential equipment.
Norway will be rebuilt.
So we started a trek of 220 km up over Tana, to Karasjok.
We were sent there for a reason: De-mining.
The danger of mines created a great need to train as many de-miners as possible.
The company commander began to go through de-mining with the whole company.
We that had been in the company one and a half year had some knowledge ...but many were new.
He would demonstrate how the pressure fuses worked. He screwed one into a teller mine.
It was not able to explode, the priming charge was missing.
Then there was an accident.
I was not there, I was sent away to do other tasks.
I was so far away that I just heard the bang.
Unfortunately, the bomb went off and 22 men were killed.
Karasjok was completely flattened. The only building that remained was the old Karasjok church.
There a kind of operating theater was established.
They unhinged some doors and lay on the benches to care for the wounded.
There were several who were wounded. 22 killed, but another 10-12 were wounded.
Around the same time a plane lifted from Bromma airport with medications to the forces in Finnmark, including penicillin.
Penicillin had been introduced a year earlier, which had led to a dramatic reduction in the number of dead soldiers.
On the plane was the nurse Ella Krogh who worked in the police troops' camp in Baggböle.
The doctor Carl Semb and Ella Krogh had to jump out in a parachute because the plane was unable to land in Karasjok.
Krogh had never been skydiving before.
The airstrip was out on Kárášjohka river.
We came to the conclusion that they could land on an ice floe.
I helped to mark a sort of airport with twigs and rods that they would aim for at landing.
Both planes came down.
Each plane took two men and flew them to Sweden.
The next day they came back and flew more of them to Sweden.
The third day they came back, landed on the ice floe, and flew Norwegian wounded soldiers ...to Sweden.
They received excellent help. All of them survived.
At 02:45 May 7 1945 the surrender document was signed at General Eisenhower's headquarters in Reims.
Germany surrendered unconditionally.
In Norway the event was announced on the radio at 15:50.
Subsequently, the German management in Norway announced that the German forces would surrender within 26 hours.
One reason might be that the police troops stood ready along the border ...
... and that Sweden has pledged to send an army of 250,000 men if there would be fighting.
It was a Swede that came to Oslo to open the concentration camp Grini,
... the police headquarters on Møllegata 19 and Viktoria terasse.
Harry Söderman had had contact with German authorities in Oslo, Stockholm and Berlin throughout the war, something he later faced criticism for.
On 6 May he went to Oslo to negotiate the release of Norwegian prisoners in Grini and Møllegata 19.
He was picked up at the border by a Gestapo car and was driven to the headquarters.
After two days of negotiations with the commissar Terboven,
... Söderman was driven to Grini by the Gestapo where he told the prisoners that Norway was a free country again.
Fehlis and Söderman found a tone of mutual respect and trust.
Söderman got to do what he was supposed to, and he followed everything he promised Fehlis to the letter.
Norway thanked Harry Söderman with a high award.
The police troops became the ultimate expression of that Sweden collaborated with Norway,
... albeit in a neutral disguise.
The fact that you could send 10-12 thousand equipped troops across the border at liberation.
It had quite a big role in securing vital functions in a very volatile situation.
At the German capitulation an urgency to coordinate the efforts of police forces in Sweden and Hjemmefronten in Norway emerged.
The police troops' regular soldiers, the reserve police, would prepare for active combat,
... while the police would mainly be used for police matters.
Sure, we had Milorg with armbands and light weapons.
But to have a military organization with the weight that had practiced with Norwegian and Swedish help.
It was a small fist which we could deploy.
It is incredible that thanks to the police troops and Milorg,
... and not least the German discipline, we managed this almost without incident.
It is honorable. We are very grateful to Sweden.
The police troops stayed in Finnmark to the end of 1945. The Russian forces left Finnmark on 26 September.
But the police troops operation in Finnmark was not mentioned with a word in the press.
When the rest of the companies from the police troops arrived in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim,
... that too was not mentioned in the press.
Many of the police troops thought it was bitter to hear that it was 9 May that the first Norwegian soldier put his feet on Norwegian soil.
At that time the police troops had been in the Finnmark for several months.
In the "Norway at war," those eight books, there the police troops are mentioned in half a page.
"The forgotten army" is certainly an appropriate name.
Many stories of small and large events during the war were forgotten in the intoxication of victory.
Norway's first major official thanks to Sweden, especially for the training of the police troops,
... was the conference center Voksenåsen in Oslo in 1955.
Schoolchildren are forming a flag avenue when the Swedish and Norwegian kings is coming to Voksenåsen ...
... where the Norwegian gift to Sweden is ready to presented.
Chairman Bull and prime minister Gerhardsen are receiving.
Several hundred are here, including many of the thousands of Swedes who worked for Hjemmefronten during the war.
This spot is from now on a little piece of Sweden in Norway.
Nordmarka is for us a protected and sacred place.
Such a small piece of Nordmarka was the best we thought we could give you.
We wanted to give you some of the best and dearest we had.
Therefore let Voksenåsen be a reminder to us all that mutual assistance between the nations ...
... is as important today as it was in Scandinavia during the war.
Dear prime minister Erlander. I have the honor, on behalf of the Norwegian people to present Norway's gift to Sweden.
It expresses the Norwegian people's heartfelt gratitude.
For us Swedes Voksenåsen will be a constant reminder ...
... of the deed that the Norwegian people did in the struggle for peace.
That was the story of the Norwegian police troops in Sweden.
When the people greeted them in Oslo they had not had to write their names in blood in the history books.
Others have done that for them.
But in Norway they still got an important task.
They reached their goal by peaceful means and ideals,
... the same ideals that pushed them forward ever since the evil times.
