War Diaries, 1939-1945

by Astrid Lindgren

  I slipped Lasse an extra two kronor and he went dashing off to join the crowds all over the world. I gave Karin one krona and she celebrated the peace by buying sweets.

  A Norwegian woman has just come on, and she’s talking about how she felt when peace arrived: she’s longing to see her son, who is in England.

  Oh, oh, now it’s over, all the torture and concentration camps and bombing raids and Ausradierung [eradication] of cities, and perhaps battered humanity can have a little rest.

  Germany and the Germans are hated – but one can’t hate all Germans, one can only pity them.

  The war is over – it’s the only thing that matters at the moment.

  The war is over! The official announcement will be made from Great Britain, America and Russia simultaneously.

  Alli and I and Karin and Matte took a tram down into town to see with our own eyes what Stockholm looked like on this historic day and struggled our way along Kungsgatan through the excited crowds. Then we took the tram home – and I’ve just heard on the evening news how overjoyed they are in Norway. A crowd gathered outside Møllergata 19 [the Nazi headquarters in Oslo], that ill-famed address, and sang the national anthem to the prisoners, though some have already been released. King Gustaf addressed the Swedish people from Drottningholm Palace; he’s sent a telegram to Haakon. With the surrender came a severing of diplomatic ties with Germany. We saw three policemen outside the German tourist office in Kungsgatan as we walked past, and there was a cover over the window. After all the German arrogance proclaimed from there! And I’ve lost count of the number of times the windows were smashed during the war! There can be nothing more bitter than being German – when other countries were defeated by Germany, they could at least take a little comfort from the sympathy shown them by other nations. But now that Germany lies defeated, the whole world is rejoicing. How is it possible for a country to become so hated, why did they commit such bestial deeds and pose such a threat to all humanity?

  (I had a glass of sherry with Esse, too. He’s definitely intending to go back to Denmark.)

  Tomorrow Churchill will speak, and Stalin and Truman, and the king of England!

  8 MAY, 2.15

  It’s one historic moment after another. I just heard Winston Churchill inform the world of the unconditional surrender of all German forces in Europe and announce that we can finally celebrate VE Day, Victory in Europe Day. He made the announcement with the radio microphone used by Chamberlain to declare war on Germany in September 1939.

  Good old Winston, he’s really the one who won the war.

  Hostilities will end at one minute after midnight on Thursday 8 May, Churchill said. How must it feel to that vigorous old man of over 70 to announce that to the British empire? He spoke like a man in his prime, in resounding tones, and I liked him more than ever. Then they played ‘God Save the King’ and its surging majesty almost made me cry.

  I’m off work sick today, as luck would have it. Sture rang me last night from the Strand [hotel and restaurant] at 10 o’clock, and again at 11, and wanted me to come out and celebrate victory, but I was too tired, and he said he’d be home in an hour. He got back at 3 o’clock, in a delicate and happy state, and by then I was half out of my mind with worry, stupidly enough. And not being able to sleep for most of the night gave me a headache, so I’m at home and can listen to Churchill. Things must have been pretty lively in the restaurants of Stockholm last night. In the [Strand’s] back restaurant all the diners sang and recited and did their party pieces. There’s no mistaking the delight at the peace here!

  9 O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING

  I just heard the king of England address his empire. He spoke better than I expected, slowly and with only a couple of slight stammers. I’ll paste his speech in here in due course.

  Earlier today I heard Crown Prince Olav, King Haakon and Prime Minister Nygaardsvold. And now VE Day is coming to a close and I can’t keep myself awake until a minute past twelve, when the cannons fall silent. In fact, they already have; to save human lives, I think they sounded ‘cease fire’ yesterday.

  WHIT MONDAY

  Written in the sunshine by the window on Karin’s birthday. Beautiful Whitsun weather but lethargic family, refused to go out this morning. I sat on my own by a flowering bird cherry in Vasa Park. And longed for the countryside. First thing this morning we presented Karin with a cake, a briefcase, a fountain pen, books and some skirt material. We’re about to have dinner, chicken and cake. The sailor [in English] is home, but he’s been out sailing quite a lot lately. I finish my ‘sordid job’ [at the censor’s office] on 1 July. I shall miss the company of my colleagues – and the income. But now the war’s over, and there’s no need for state security any more. Though things don’t exactly seem quiet, if you ask me. The San Francisco conference isn’t getting anywhere and the Russians have made new demands. The Poland question is causing problems and the Russians have occupied Bornholm, which I doubt they’ll let go of, so that will give them mastery of the whole Baltic Sea.

  I’m scared of the Russians.

  [Typed transcript of Norwegian letters from Astrid’s work at the censor’s office: a female and a male testimony of their time when held prisoner at Møllergata and in the concentration camps.]

  [Press cutting from Dagens Nyheter, 19 May 1945: ‘Dying Berlin terrorized by the SS and other criminals’.]

  2 JUNE

  I haven’t been following daily events very closely over the past week, but there’s trouble in the Levant and de Gaulle is furious and Marshal Tedder of the Royal Air Force was over here and in Norway and the refugees are going back home and we’ve been given notice from our ‘secret’ jobs from 1 July, so peace seems to have broken out in earnest, though one can scarcely believe it with the victors still squabbling the way they are. Russia is holding on to Bornholm.

  I sold ‘Barbro and I’ (if that’s what they call it) and got 800 kronor for it, and the rest of Britt-Mari brought in 300 kronor and the Finnish translation just over 300 kronor and they gave me 58 kronor for a reading of Britt-Mari on the radio. I do so enjoy being an ‘author’. At the moment I’m reworking ‘Pippi Longstocking’ to see if I can make anything of that bad child.

  It’s a cold start to the summer and I feel rather on edge at times, yet at others I’m in high spirits. It’s going to be sad parting from my colleagues at work. I’ve been sleeping rather badly lately. On Thursday, Karin sits her entrance exam for the grammar school. Lars is often out at student parties and he’s got this wild notion of going to England as a deckhand on a ship. Sture has meetings almost every evening.

  17 JUNE

  World politics has had to take care of itself for a while, there hasn’t been time to pay attention. Karin’s now taken her entrance exam and got a place at the grammar school at Sveaplan, thank goodness, as has Matte.

  Lars has signed articles, as a deckhand on the Ardennia, which is on its way to Rotterdam via Sundsvall, and I think about him a lot and wonder how he’ll get on. Karin got simply splendid grades and Lasse failed three subjects, poor chap; I do wonder how things will turn out for him!

  Sture has made another comeback, or so it seems.

  And King Haakon and Crown Princess Märtha are back in Norway. King Leopold would like to go home to Belgium, but it seems the Belgian people don’t want him. I’m sure various other things have happened, but I can’t bring them to mind at the moment. Here we sit, Sture and I, with our children spread to the four winds, and in the evenings I really miss them.

  It’s perishing-cold most of the time, with wind and rain, ugh! Yesterday Sture and I went to the pictures to see Dodsworth, an old film that Sture couldn’t abide.

  MIDSUMMER DAY

  I don’t think we’ve ever had such lovely weather for midsummer; after a terrifically raw and chilly start to the summer the warm weather’s arrived just in time for the holiday. But it could vanish again just as fast.

  Sture and I are spending midsummer on our own at Dalagatan, a very s
ensitive midsummer and a bit wet. We’re about to have chicken and then we’re off to the veranda at the Strand for coffee and liqueur, and then the Kar de Mumma revue at the Blanche [theatre]. This morning, once I’d cleaned the flat, I cycled out to Haga on my own, while Sture stayed at home to read the paper. I sat in the sun above Mor på Höjden [café] and almost melted.

  I hope Karin enjoys her midsummer at Solö. Lasse’s in Sundsvall; he rang me the night before last. He’ll go to Göteborg first, then on to England and Holland. It was nice being able to talk to him for a while.

  Yesterday Sture and I went to see a rerun of You Can’t Take It with You, an old Capra film.

  I’ve finished revising Pippi and now I’m meant to be starting on a new, more normal children’s book. But Per-Martin has suggested trying to write a new family series for the radio. It would be great fun if I could pull it off. I’m afraid it’ll turn out to be a load of rubbish, though.

  My job at the censor’s office ends in a week – and then we’re off to the country.

  18 JULY

  It’s too hot to write. Though Churchill and Truman are in Berlin on a sightseeing tour of Hitler’s Reich Chancellery and other more prominent landmarks, those that have survived. Stalin is also on his way there. Apart from that I don’t know what’s going on in the world. In Japan the fighting is still in full swing.

  We’re fighting in Furusund, too. With Grandmother. About ham, among other things. This heatwave is just insane and we’re gasping like fish washed up on dry land. Sture, Karin and I are here. We’ve come full circle since 7 July last year.

  Lars is being rocked on the ocean waves, I know not where. I think about him every night and regret letting him go. He ought to be back by now.

  The censor’s job ended on 31 June. The evening before, we had a farewell party at Bellmansro [restaurant]. There was a marvellous atmosphere and we enjoyed ourselves. The day after, the last day at work, felt rather sad and there were tears in some quarters. We had lunch at the Victoria, Anne-Marie and Rut Nilsson and I, Miss Nygren and Rydick, Dubois, Skyllerstedt and Wikberg. Nirsch came along for a while as well. And afterwards we all bade each other a tender farewell in Kungsträdgården [park]. It was the end of an era.

  I’m keeping a slightly daft diary here in Furusund between the downpours. This evening Linnéa and I are going over on our bikes to fetch Matte.

  If only I had Lars back home again!

  15 AUGUST

  Today the Second World War ended. Cessation of hostilities between Japan and the Allies, they announced on the news this morning. We heard Attlee speak and then they played the British, American, Russian and Chinese national anthems. Before all that, Swedish listeners heard Eyvind Johnson talking about peace.

  Imagine it finally ending at last. Six years, give or take two weeks. How well I remember sitting in Vasa Park when Alli came up and said the Germans had marched into Poland. That was a fine, warm day, and it’s ended on a fine, warm day as well. I celebrated the peace by helping with the oats on Slätö. It was hot and the sun was shining. Karin and Gunvor took the poles round in the cart and helped us put the sheaves in stooks as well. So did Stina.

  Sture had an operation, his appendix, and I was in Stockholm with him for a fortnight, rather than in Småland. Now I’ve a week left before school starts again. Lars is home from his trip abroad and is at Norra Latin’s summer hostel catching up on some revision. Summer will soon be over.

  Oh yes, I forgot – Marshal Pétain was condemned to death yesterday evening. But in view of his age, the sentence probably won’t be carried out.

  I wonder whether things really are calm all round the globe at this moment, whether there are no bombs falling, no cannons firing, no warships sinking, and how quiet and strange it would be if that were so!

  [Press cutting: ‘Englishmen drive more slowly than we do’. Unidentified short article about recent visit to London by Sture Lindgren in his capacity as head of the Swedish motorists’ association. Comments on slow speed of driving and the heavy London traffic.]

  20 NOVEMBER

  The English drive more slowly than we do and Pippi Longstocking is funny – with these idyllic observations I shall round off today’s crop of cuttings, a change from the horrors they normally deal with. I sat here all evening pasting in cuttings from the past month’s papers and more; it’s been such a long time since I last wrote anything. Plenty has happened, as I hope the cuttings show. Unfortunately I didn’t save anything about the execution of Quisling,* which was carried out one day, or rather one night, in October, when he was brought from prison in a police car to Akershus [Fortress], where he was shot. One gets the feeling the fellow really believed he had done his best for Norway – remarkably enough. Be that as it may, he’s now feeding the worms. Just like Laval. And soon it’ll be the big German villains, who go on trial today. Every country is having a good purge at the moment. And picking out its scapegoats.

  * Found it while I was doing my big pre-Christmas clean.

  It’s at the end of this notebook.

  [Two press cuttings about the execution of Quisling, one unidentified, one from Expressen, 24 October 1945.]

  My cuttings don’t say enough about the dreadful hardship in Germany. In Vienna and Berlin they reckon all the babies could die this winter.

  Coffee came off ration on 1 November (to the delight of all coffee-lovers), along with tea and cocoa. We see the occasional banana now. Tobacco rationing is over, and spices are off ration, too.

  And I won first prize for Pippi Longstocking, which is coming out any day now. Meanwhile, Sture had to go to London, but didn’t like it at all. It was in a sorry state after the war, not much food and so on, dirty and dismal.

  Karin’s in her first year at the school at Sveaplan and acquitting herself well, ambitious little soul. Lasse’s in his final year at upper secondary (after resitting three subjects), we’ll see how it goes!

  I’m working part-time for the 1944 State Part-Time Work Commission and I sometimes miss the old censor’s office. We had a party here on the 13th for my old workmates from Sections 11 and 12 – and I very much wonder whether we’ll all meet up like that again.

  I just heard a live transmission from Nuremberg. I heard all those butchers stand there and declare themselves nicht schuldig [not guilty]. Frank – the butcher of Poland, Streicher, persecutor of Jews, Göring, Hess, the whole lot were as innocent as lambs and assured the court of the fact in steady voices.

  25 NOVEMBER

  Right now everybody’s talking about, and opposing and despairing over, the Swedish government’s decision to agree to Russian demands that we hand over large numbers of Baltic refugees, who the Russians want back home so they can kill them. It feels as dishonourable as when we gave way to Germany and let the leave trains pass through Sweden. There are protests from many quarters – I suppose the next few days will prove whether we are really going through with this outrage. How stupid of the Russians to make such a proposal! It only drags into broad daylight the fact that everyone with any experience of Russia knows them to be guilty of atrocities to match any ever committed by the Germans – though it isn’t considered opportune to mention it nowadays. They’ve enough people at home to kill already, without importing any from Sweden.

  Shoes and fabrics are coming off ration on Monday, and petrol rationing ends today.

  And yesterday I went into a bookshop and bought myself a copy of Pippi Longstocking, that jolly funny book, which would never have existed if it weren’t for my sprained foot at the end of winter 1944. Not that it would really have mattered, of course!

  CHRISTMAS DAY

  The snow is falling outside our window and a quiet calm prevails inside, except when Grandmother launches into one of her detailed accounts of events in the lives of people I don’t know.

  We had a really nice Christmas Eve, peaceful and happy. It feels rather different to last year – I didn’t weep into the herring salad. Nor did I have to wear myself out; my part-time
job leaves me plenty of time, so I had everything ready well in advance.

  Karin was in seventh heaven on Christmas Eve and is just as pleased today. Sture and I thought of going out to Djurgården yesterday but we found ourselves waiting so long for the number 14 that we did a little circuit round Karlbergsvägen and Sankt Eriksplan instead. It’s been snowing all day and looks as Christmassy as anything. Yesterday evening there were Christmas carols on the radio and listening to them for a while gave me a sense of utter joy. I feel so undeservedly rich, things are all going well, I have so many friends, I have my home, my children, my Sture, I have virtually everything.

  This is the first peacetime Christmas – though here in Sweden the contrast isn’t all that marked, seeing as we’ve been living in the lap of luxury throughout. Unfortunately I don’t suppose the change is that noticeable abroad either, there’s such terrible, acute need. As I look about me at our warm and cosy home, which looks so nice (if I say so myself) with its white hyacinths and candles and Christmas tree and the pyramid cake on the table, I think about all the pitiful wretches around the world and all the poor children who won’t even notice it’s Christmas.