Folklore Fights the Nazis: Humor in Occupied Norway, 1940–1945

4. Humor's Response to Nazi Repression and Cruelty

4 Humor's Response to Nazi Repression and Cruelty On 26 September 1940 Aslaug Rommetveit told her diary: As of today German authorities have replaced the King and Storting [Parliament]. All political parties in the country are forbidden. Only the Nazi Party [NS] will continue to exist. Disquiet prevails and resentment smolders among people all over the country. This smoldering resentment found varied and sometimes surprising expression. That fall, for example, some Oslo students decided that wearing a paper clip in the lapel would signify solidarity. Binders is Norwegian for "paper clip," so wearing it suggested: Vi binder sammen-"we bind together, united we stand." The Nazi police attempted to discourage this demonstration, occasionally resorting to violence and arrests, but, notes the diarist SchouSorensen : No sooner did they forbid the paper clip demonstration, than people began carrying combs protruding from their breast-pockets to signify: Vi greier oss selv [We'll manage by ourselves, i.e., without German "help"-a pun based on the double meaning of the verb agreie as both "to comb" and "to manage"].) It was also common, she writes, to pass the lapel through its buttonhole in order to "stick out one's tongue" at the Germans or to wear the face of one's watch on the underside of the wrist to proclaim : Ned med den nye tid ("Down with the New Time"-i.e., down with Nazism). Some men wore matchsticks in their hat bands to suggest Vi er opplyst: ("We're enlightened; you can't fool us"opplyst means both "lit up" and "enlightened, informed"). 71 72 FOLKLORE FIGHTS THE NAZIS STOCKING CAPS AND SUBVERSIVE SLOGANS One of the most effective anti-Nazi demonstrations was the wearing of red woolen stocking caps during the winter of 1940-41. Myrtle Wright, an Englishwoman detained in Norway during the war, noted in her diary: The unanimity with which youth suddenly wore the nisselue (the Norwegian name for caps worn by gnomes) did not pass unnoticed by the authorities and was recognized by the NS as a demonstration against them. With Hitler's June 1941 invasion of Russia (see chap. 10), all red clothing became suspect and simply wearing that color could lead to arrest, since the Nazis regarded it an expression of support for the Soviet Red Army. The police department had trouble finding room for all the confiscated red clothing, and their rapidly growing supply of toggery led to jokes about women coming to the police department asking directions to the dress department. Anecdotes of confrontations between the Nazis and their stocking cap-clad opponents also multiplied (see chap. 8 for more), like this one recorded by Schou-Sorensen: A Nazi woman removed the nisselue from a young girl on the Holmenkollen tram. The girl didn't react, but as she exited the tram, she snatched the lady's hat and got off with it. Quisling decried the "absurd" anti-Nazi demonstrations for undermining Norway's best interests, and on 8 July 1941 Propaganda Minister Gulbrand Lunde-not otherwise credited with a strong sense of humor-ridiculed those individuals who go around wearing paper clips, whether because they think they're a piece of stationery, or plan to be sent in the mail, . . . it reminds us of [Ibsen's play] Peer Gynt in which an insane asylum inmate fancied he was a pen. [Nokleby 1985, 117] Reverting to the Nazis' proverbial humorlessness, Lunde continued , One could of course be tempted to laugh if it weren't so tragic that people in Norway really are carrying on with this foolishness while the whole world is in upheaval. [Nokleby 1985, 117] 4: HUMOR'S RESPONSE TO NAZI REPRESSION AND CRUELTY 73 Notwithstanding Lunde's seeming dismissal of the demonstrations as "idiotic pranks," the Nazis took the Jossings' jokes and demonstrations very seriously and in no small measure invested them with extra power by overreacting to them. The overreaction went so far, notes Christerson, that if individuals went without a stocking cap in cold weather, this too was regarded as a demonstration : it was a nisselue they were not wearing! About these demonstrations and the Nazi overreaction to them, another survivor says: What was done often seemed ridiculous, but it had the effect of uniting all the opposition forces. These were acts that if ignored by the authorities would have had no effect, but because the Regime protested so vigorously, these little things became important...