Germany's invasion of Norway (1940)

Germany's invasion of Norway in 1940 is recalled as a moment when public life seemed to stop: German troops filled the streets of Oslo, while Trond Sander and his father watched in silence before trying to find a way home. In Trond's memory, the invasion also precedes his father's first departure and the cold-water ritual he and his sister began together, binding historical upheaval to private absence and chosen endurance.

The Invasion in Oslo

Three weeks before the May 1 swim that Trond remembers, German soldiers arrived in Oslo and marched down Karl Johan in an endless column. The day was cold, and the street was silent except for the synchronized crash of boots, which struck the walls by the university and echoed across Universitetsplassen. Messerschmitts then roared low over the rooftops, coming in from the fjord, the open sea, and Germany. The crowd watched without speaking.

Trond's father did not explain what was happening. He looked down at his son and slowly shook his head; Trond shook his head in return. Taking Trond by the hand, his father led him out of the crowd, past the parliament house, toward Østbane Station. They were trying to discover whether the bus on Mosseveien was running or the southbound train was on time, or whether all travel had stopped. Trond could no longer remember how they had come into town or how they eventually got home, though he thought they probably walked.

From Public Upheaval to Private Absence

The invasion is followed in Trond's recollection by his father's first departure. Not long afterward, Trond and his sister began swimming in the cold Bunnefjord. The memory does not explain the circumstances of the departure, but its placement makes the change in the family part of the invasion's personal aftermath: the father who had held Trond's hand through the silent city was soon away for the first time.

The swims became an annual undertaking, begun when Trond was seven. He and his sister went on May 1, jumping from the sloping rocks at Katten beach into grey-green water despite the cold. They swam from Katten to Ingierstrand, with one sibling in the water and the other standing ready at the shore with a rope in case the swimmer developed cramp. The practice was not undertaken for pleasure. They felt they ought to do something demanding, something painful enough to require an effort.

Memory and Endurance

The invasion returns not as an isolated historical report but as a memory Trond summons while sitting in a cow byre years later. Recalling the spring of 1940—the silent crowd, his father's gesture, and the freezing water—helps him steady himself in the present. The recollection gives the swims a double significance: they are a childhood pact between brother and sister, and a repeated response to a period marked by invasion and their father's absence. Their rope at the water's edge carries the practical risk of the ritual, while the ritual's deliberate discomfort turns endurance into something they chose to do together.