The internationally known welfare benefits Norway got as a result of oil export, did not help everyone. In fact, many were forgotten. Here is the story of the men who survived WW2, traumatized and injured, but who received no help and became homeless.
Most of these single men had served as convoy sailors, soldiers or volunteers for Nazi Germany or Norway. They were working class boys, who had no family waiting to help them upon return, and being single men they were put at the back in the line in the housing market. In 1948, 14.161 families were still renting from Oslo municipality and lacked a home. Oslo had always been a city lacking housing for the rapidly growing working class, and up to 80% of the inhabitants were renting, not owing a home. After the war, the situation were worse, as half of Norway had been destroyed, and had thousands of refugees waiting for a permanent home. One such story to describe the difficulties were shown in 1950, when Leif Brattested and his wife were looking for a place to rent in Oslo, without much luck. Brattested wanted to figure out the situation on the rental market, so he placed a fake advertisement in a newspaper with the text “Small apartment for rent. Bill. Mr. Cheap.” A few days later he picked up a package from the post office weighting several kilograms, containing thousands of letters from desperate people looking for a home.
Most single men in this situation had to rent a short-term stay at various bed&breakfasts or hostels. On top of that, many were traumatized from what they had seen and been through. They were unable to get a job, healthcare for their traumas were non-existent and relationships to other people quite difficult. One such man named Harald Grande (1927–2017) chose to abandon his hostel-life, and went into the forest to live there. He told the newspaper in 2015 “- As unmarried, I wasn’t even engaged, I had no chance of getting housing. I lived for a period in a Christian boarding house, but I did not feel comfortable there. Also, it was expensive. So when the room I was staying in was to be renovated, I found out that I might as well move out into the forest.”
He had returned to Norway in 1949, after serving in the Independent Norwegian Brigade Group for the Allied British Forces in Western Germany, which operated from 1946 to 1953. Harald Grande struggled with finding work in Namsos where he came from, and given that he had grown up poor, his family could not help. In Oslo he gathered up some pieces of driftwood and lived in a shed at the edge of the city, in the middle of the forest. As a result of housing shortages, a homeless colony had grown in the forest surrounding Oslo. Most of the inhabitants were single men who struggled with traumas from the war, and Harald found himself a secluded place so well hidden that nobody else found him. Due to his anxiety for fire, he did not burn in the stove he found and placed in the cabin, and so he slept in cold temperatures all winter. He prepared his food over a bonfire some meters from the cabin, and he never used public transport because of his claustrophobia. Yet he worked at Aker Mechanics, which meant that he walked up to 50 kilometers a day. Especially if he met some friends in different organizations. Walking kept him healthy, as he also drank quite a lot to deal with his anxieties.
Oslo municipality burned down the cabins
To make matters worse, during New Years Eve 1963/64 a fight broke out between some homeless forest inhabitants, where one of them died. The municipality services then decides to evict the homeless people, and burn down the cabins. Colonies at Sognsvann, Bygdøy, Grefsen, Årvollåsen where Harald lived, Ammerud and Lysaker river were all removed. Except Harald’s cabin — it was too well hidden for the firemen to find. Indeed the firemen felt sorry for the homeless men, they helped the fire crew to warn of forest fires and kept the forest in a good condition. What happened to the evicted is unknown, as no one who lived in these colonies were interested in a social life. They wanted to isolate and live on their own.
Harald’s first cabin burned down in 1978 because of a friend who left some matches burning. The next cabin was rebuilt on the same spot, without isolation, electricity or any kitchen. He got acquainted with the forest supervisor who started working to preserve his cabin as a historical landmark after Harald left the cabin in 1993. Harald Grande got friends in the neighborhood nearby as well, who invited him for Christmas or other festivities. Yet he moved back to Overhalla valley where he was born, to a house he inherited from his father. Here he was found dead in 2017, after living his entire life outdoors.
Harald Grande claimed he after all lived a good life, dreaming of arctic expeditions and a peaceful existence in the forest.
In memory of Harald Grande, 1927–2017.
