A photography of Sigrid Helliesen Lund as published on the cover of her autobiography "Alltid underveis". According to an information from the book, it was taken by Arnt Sneve in 1981. Mrs. Lund‘s memoirs were one of the most important sources I used for my seminar paper. The book included a lot of details from her life that would otherwise be hard for me to discover, if at all.

Photo from the book Alltid underveis, Sigrid Helliesen Lund, 1997

This article was published in the Norwegian newspaper Arbeiderbladet on the 26th October 1939. The article’s title is "39 children that their parents must have sent away" and describes the arrival of the Czechoslovak Jewish children brought to Norway by the Nansehjelpen organisation. As the lead paragraph states, "today the refugee children from Prague and Bratislava arrived, and they have been eager to come to Norway". The first photography shows the children’s group, while the second depicts three Nansenhjelpen workers who accompanied the children on their journey from Prague and were responsible for them.

The women are (from left to right) : Tove Filseth, the Nansenhjelpen’s secretary; Sigrid Helliesen Lund, the chairman of the children’s section of Nansehjelpen; and Marie Lous Mohr.

During my stay in Oslo, I had an amazing oportunity to meet Mr. Bernt Lund, Sigrid Helliesen Lund’s son. Despite being already in his 90s, Mr. Lund was incredibly welcoming and willing to share memories of his mother with me. It was invaluable for my project work to be able to enter this personal dimension, to connect lines from books with words from the reality. On my visit, I was accompanied by professor Jakob Lothe from the University of Oslo, who was also kind enough to organize this whole meeting.

From left to right: Bernt Lund, Anna Šilhanová, Jakob Lothe.

This photography of Sigrid Helliesen Lund was taken in 1979 and published in her memoirs. Here she can be seen in the company of Torkel Fornes, one of the brave men who helped her cross the borders to Sweden under the cover of night in 1944 - and thus flee from the Nazi occupied Norway. This was the time when Mrs. Lund was in a serious danger of being arrested by gestapo due to her illegal humanitarian activities.

Photo (from left): Sigrid Helliesen Lund a Torkel Fornes