The NS-children in Norway meet 3-4 times a year.  We want to represent a place of refuge, where children of members of the National Unification may speak freely, ask questions and tell about their problems without experiencing the lack of understanding the rest of society still shows us. 

For most NS-children it has been felt more safe to hide our background if possible. Another way of feeling safe in the Norwegian Society has been to adopt the official opinions about what our parents are said to have meant and done, and even show more hostility against them than Norwegians at large do. 

Some of us feel that we need to meet and talk about our experiences and thoughts. It is our background we have in common. Else we are very different. We meet 3-4 times a year Saturdays at 1 p.m. There is always a speaker, telling us his thoughts of a subject of common interest. Then we have a discussion, we eat, talk and enjoy being together till the evening. 

Last spring the writer and journalist Bjørn Westlie shared his thoughts.  He was the one who started the debate about giving the Norwegian Jews back the property confiscated during the war, and which was not returned shortly after the war. In Norway the values belonging to Jews as well as the property of other Norwegians abroad were to a great extent taken care of during the war by the National authorities (National Unification, NS) but all was not given back during the immediate postwar period. Now this has been effected. 

Bjørn Westlie also has written about the Norwegian Gipsies and about race- and genehygiene. His chosen object was «Living with the sins of our fathers, and carrying the shame without bitterness». As usual, the views in the group differed. 

The Bishop of Trondheim in October 1999 made the whole bishopry ask the children of German soldiers and the children of the members of the National Unification (NS) forgiveness. Later he made all his colleagues agree. We met bishop Finn Wagle on September 30.th. 2000. He was publicly criticized for meeting a group with mixed views on the Norwegian WWII history. We had a good and open conversation. The bishop asked for and was told some of our personal and rather sad experiences with the church of Norway. 

At Christmas Bjørg Jacobsson started conversation about what we have learned from being NS-children. Among what we have learned is independent thinking, and the experience of being misjudged because of our background. This helps us understand others with similar experiences.

The Nobel price laureate Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson was raised in Molde. He was among the men who together with Emile Zola made known the injustice against Dreyfus. The subject at the annual Bjørnson conference in Molde in August 2000, was the fate of the children of Germans born in Norway 1941-46 and the children of the members of the National Unification  (NS). 

The NS-children were told that we no longer need to feel ashamed of our parents. What our parents did was not our responsibility. It is taken for granted that we all are more ashamed of our parents than of the Norwegian society at large. A program in the Norwegian TV in October about the NS-children gave the same impression. The producer, Ole Jan Larsen met us on March 31, 2001. He told that this was the program of its kind seen by the most people this autumn, about 12% of all Norwegians watched. He experienced, that many NS-children refused to partake in the program, because they were afraid of the consequences it might have for them and their families. It seemed to be unexpected to many Norwegians that betwwen 100000 and 200000 out of a population of 4 millions are NS-children. 

February 16.-18.2001 the Warchildunion «Lebensborn» met in the town Kongsvinger. Among the invited guests were Leif Bodin Larsen from the union of the Norwegian Gipsies, and Inger Cecilie Stridsklev from the NS-children. Norway lost about 10 000 inhabitants at sea and on land during WWII, and during 1941-46 got about 10 000 children of Germans living in Norway.

We soon realized we have much in common.

Many from all the groups had missed one or both parents from some years to all life. Many lacked schooling, and therefore were illiterate.

The gipsies has the longest experience in being victims. They have been in Norway since the Middle Ages.

The NS-children have been persecuted since 1940. The War Children hardly remember persecution before 1945, which does not mean it did not happen. The Germans wanted them to be Germans, the Norwegian authorites during the war wanted them to be Norwegian. The Norwegian authorities after the war regarded these small children a risk and a problem, which they wanted out of the country. Some were brought several times between Norway and Germany.

Still none of these groups wants to be regarded as loosers. We want to be respected for who we are, as persons and as groups, each with our spesific background. Theoretically there may be some of us who belong to all three groups. Some gipsies became members of the National Unification, some because that made them feel safer. Some members of the National Unification also had children with German fathers. 

We hope this is the beginning of a cooperation. 

The Union of the Gipsies was founded in 1995. They want to be of practical help to eachother and to keep their culture. Every May 7.th they meet at an anonymous mass grave near the great psychiatric hospital in Oslo. There many gipsies are buried after treatment in the hospital.

«Norwegian Mission among the homeless» (The Mission) was in cooperation with the Norwegian Government to make gipsies like most other Norwegians. During its work between 1897 and 1986 more than 1500 children were taken from their parents. The population was 3-4000. Because the leader of the Mission was aware that the international Nazi Police was interested in «elements of differing races», he offered the archives of the Mission, concerning the names and whereabouts of the Norwegian gipsies, to the Police department, lead by the National Unification. He met little interest in the subject.

After the war, the Mission intensified its work, as well by taking children as by sterilisation. The Law of sterilisation was passed in 1934, there was an increase in the operations during the war, but never were so many sterilisations performed as during the period 1945-54. 

The leaders of the Mission were clergymen. One was called Ingvald B. Carlsen. He developed understanding for eugenics. He also was in the «War Children committee», which described all the problems Norway would have because of these children aged 0 to 4, and how to deal with them. It was taken for granted, that these children were genetically defect. In 1945 he wrote a book about the Norwegian church during the war, in which he described his opponents in the National Unification as no better than himself.

Seven members of the Warchildunion «Lebensborn» has filed a case against the Norwegian state. Their lawyer presented the state of the cases at the meeting. She assured us, that even by a lost case, the fate of the war children would be known to the Norwegian society at large.