Childhood and life at Svanviken

"I was born in a boat in Østre Mæland municipality in Lillesand. When I was almost five years old, we were forced to move to the Svanviken work camp at Nordmøre. Bjørnstad from the Mission came up to the boat and told my parents, ‘Either you move to Svanviken work camp or we take the children away from you!’

On 12 July 1953, we left for Svanviken. When we arrived at Svanviken we were asked to bathe in what was called the "delousing" by the colonists (those who lived there). My mother was very clean, and we didn't have lice, but at Svanviken they assumed everyone had to be deloused before they could stay there.

We moved into house number one at Svanviken, popularly called ‘the first’. There was a kitchen, a living room and two small bedrooms. In addition, there was an outside toilet that was emptied every week.

We were at Svanviken from December 1953 to June 1959, a total of five and a half years. For us kids, it was okay to be there while we were in day care. From the time we were three years old until we started school, we had to be in day care from 9:00 to 15:00. My mother had kitchen duty and sewing duty and was learning to take care of the house, while my father had to do farm work and forestry. Working hours were from 07:00 to 17:00, interrupted by an hour for dinner from 12:00 to 13:00.

Ms. Gran did a white-glove test of the home at 9am each day. Every week, there was a ‘mothers’ night’ or a ‘wives’ night’ where the women were supposed to learn how to hold a coffee cup correctly.

Both my parents could read and write, but they still had to go to evening school to learn it. This school was mandatory one or two nights per week. Residents were allowed to do crafts, but trading, speaking Romani and dressing in a traditional way were forbidden. We were not allowed to sing our traditional songs either! Every other Sunday, we were forced to go to church.

We had little contact with the locals. The men got out a bit through their jobs and were able to get involved with the locals through football. The mothers, on the other hand, just stayed inside Svanviken, so it was a lot harder for them. They had to make shopping lists and were only allowed to buy what the employees at Svanviken thought they needed. They had to shop in the colony; only clothes could be purchased on the outside. People who had previously had a free life were locked up at Svanviken.

The parents basically lost custody of the kids when they came to Svanviken. The manager would walk around telling parents how to punish their children. The officials lived in the colony, and the colony houses where we lived faced the manager, so that he could watch everyone."

Schooling

"At school, everyday life began. First grade went reasonably well, although it was very strict. I had a nice teacher named Danbolt. We mostly sang hymns and played the piano. There were only eight or nine kids at one time at Svanviken. First-to-third grade were together, and fourth-to-seventh were together.

We were enrolled in Eide school, but nobody there controlled what was going on. The problems at the school started when Knut Myhre started. He was a priest and was first a teacher, then the manager at Svanviken. Myhre is the worst person ever to be at Svanviken. If you had done ten maths problems and one was wrong, you would have to stand in the corner. Children were falling down from exhaustion after standing there for a really long time. Then he had his own technique of picking them back up. I specifically remember one time. He grabbed a girl so hard and screamed at her, so she both peed and shit herself out of fear. I'll never forget that."

Settlement and Svanviken in the 1970s

"After five and a half years at Svanviken, we got a small house in Nittedal, far away from the family. Starting school in Nittedal, where you could do whatever you wanted, was too much for me. After skipping school and getting into petty thievery, I was sent to Rostad in Nord-Trøndelag at the age of 14. A wild adolescence followed.

I had different jobs off and on and also tried to reconnect with the travelling life. I eventually ended up in prison. When I got out of there, I met Doris. She got pregnant, so we needed some help to get a place to live. We went to Nittedal Social Security Office, but they referred us to the Mission.

We then went to the Mission headquarters. They told us we could get an education if we went to Svanviken. A lot had changed there. There was no more farm work. No one opened the letters we received anymore. We were also allowed to visit the nearby village. All the strict rules were gone, but Svanviken was still run by the Norwegian Mission for the Homeless. Kids were still taken from their parents. The mothers' club existed, and the attitude toward the Tater/Romani people was the same: ‘They don't know any better.’

We left Svanviken just before Christmas in 1975. Svanviken continued to exist until 1989 and the Mission received grants until 1991. We came to Svanviken to get an education, but there was not much to be had. What we met at Svanviken was a kindergarten mentality, and the three years we stayed there were completely wasted!"