My one complaint with the Resistance Museum in Oslo was that it did not include the role played by Norwegian women.* This is not surprising: we have only begun to hear stories about women in the resistance in various countries in Europe in the last few years.

A dive down the research rabbit hole made it clear that Norwegian women were in fact active in the resistance, just like their counterparts throughout Europe. Just like their counterparts, much of what they did was later dismissed as “passive resistance”** by scholars. And some of them were just plain “dissed” by their countrymen after the war.

Here are a few examples:

Eva Kløvstad began her resistance work in 1943 as an accountant at the Transport Office in Hamar, where she embezzled petrol marks and gave them to resistance workers who were moving refugees through Sweden. Later, under the code name Jakob, she was the defacto leader of 1,200 resistance fighters in the unit known as Milorg D-25 after its original leader was shot by the Gestapo. After the war, she was not allowed to march along the male members of her unit in the victory celebration.

Norwegian-born film star Sonja Wigert used her acting talents for the Norwegian resistance, as a double agent against the Germans for Sweden, and later for the OSS. Her code name was Bill. The Reichskommissar of occupied Norway had a weakness for beautiful actresses that Wigert effectively manipulated. She secured the release of a number of prisoners from Nazi internment, including her father. She provided information about Nazi agents in Sweden and was instrumental in getting a number of them expelled from the country. But she paid a high price for her work. After the war ended, she was shunned as a Nazi collaborator. In 1945, she sought to clear her name by giving interviews about her anti-German activities. The full extent of her contribution to the war efforts was only revealed 25 years after her death, when the Swedish secret service released the information.

On a happier note, Anne Margrethe Bang took part in the Battle of Hegra Fortress as a nurse.  She was the only woman in the small group of Norwegians who held off the Germans for 25 days and were the last forces in southern Norway to capitulate to the invaders. She joined the volunteer unit when she learned that the forces at Hegra lacked medical supplies. After the fortress surrendered on May 5 1940, she was held as a POW. Once released, she joined the resistance movement again. After the war, she received numerous decorations for her war efforts, including the Norwegian War Medal.

To put this in context: 1433 members of the Norwegian resistance were killed during the German occupation; 255 of them were women

*In all fairness, the bookstore carried several books about women in the resistance. I did not buy any of them because they were in Norwegian. And working through documents in Sigrid Schultz’s archives taught me that Norwegian is not close enough to German to allow me to force my way through for more than a few paragraphs.

**A large percentage of the women involved in resistance movements in World War II did not actively carry guns or engage in sabotage, though their jobs were as dangerous as those of their armed counterparts. Because women could move more freely, they carried out critical activities that allowed the armed resistance movement to function. They acted as couriers, collected intelligence and arranged for food, supplies and shelter for armed insurgents. They transported weapons and ammunition and distributed illegal printed materials, sometimes using the trappings of pregnancy and motherhood to help them smuggle contraband under the eyes of German soldiers. Not passive actions by any reasonable definition of the term.