The attorney for one group of seven children who were tormented both during and after the war has now secured a hearing at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. "For the first time, I'm optimistic on behalf of the 'war children'," lawyer Randi Spydevold told newspaper Aftenposten.
Called krigsbarna or, more derogatorily, tyskerungene in Norway, the children generally were the otherwise innocent products of relationships between Norwegian women and German soldiers or officers stationed in Norway during the Nazi occupation. Some of the children were taken from their Norwegian mothers and sent to the families of their fathers in Germany. Several of these were later found by the Red Cross and returned to Norway after the war.
The post-war years turned into a nightmare for many of the children. More than 100 later filed suit against the state, claiming they had been physically and mentally abused in Norwegian schools, shunned and bullied by teachers, molested in orphanages, mistreated by public health personnel and even branded as mentally retarded or having "bad genes" and committed to psychiatric institutions where they suffered more abuse.
Horrifying tales
Those returned to their mothers were often abused by their Norwegian stepfathers, or by foster families to which they assigned by the state. Some of their stories are horrifying.
Gerd Synnøve Andersen of Sarpsborg, for example, says she was often washed with boiling hot water in an orphanage after being told that was the only way to wash "German children with greasy hair." Andersen claims she was routinely beaten and sexually molested by a teacher in the sixth grade. A pastor with the state church later recommended she be sterilized.
Another man from the mountain community of Romsdal says he was moved around to 20 various orphanages after the war, where he was locked in closets because he "stank," scrubbed with ammonia and raped by older boys at a school with a teacher's approval.
'Never knew'
The children, now all in their late 50s or 60s, claim the Norwegian government violated their human rights by failing to protect them, often from abusers who were public employees. They have lost all court appeals in Norway, both in Oslo City Court, the state Appeals Court and Norway's highest court. Thus the appeal to Strasbourg.
Government lawyers claim Norwegian authorities never knew about the abuse of the children after the war, and that there's no foundation for their claims. "That's like refusing to acknowledge that gas chambers could be found during the war," retorts lawyer Spydevold.
Government defense attorneys also have claimed their complaints are too old to be tried in court. The Norwegian parliament, meanwhile, has authorized some compensation to the now-grown children, but with a maximum of NOK 20,000 (about USD 3,000).
