Biography
Alle deler > AFI
My father, Dr. Gunnar Finsen, was born in Hamburg in 1907. His father was an Icelandic student who later founded the first daily newspaper in Iceland, Morgunbladid, and subsequently became an Icelandic diplomat. His mother was Norwegian. He retained his Icelandic nationality all his life. He grew up in Iceland, until the age of 14 when the family moved to Oslo. After finishing school, he studied medicine in Oslo. During this time he travelled to France and Spain to learn languages. He wanted to go to Ethiopia after the Italian invasion, but apparently his mother cried so much that he felt he could not go. When the Norwegian and Swedish labour movements advertised for medical personnel to go to Alcoy, Spain in 1937 during the civil war he did not tell his mother and served at the Hospital Sueco-Noruego for 7 months. The organizers told him he could not go when they discovered that he was an Icelandic citizen. My father went to the Norwegian passport office and told them his name, which sounds very Norwegian, and that he needed a passport. They answered “certainly, Sir” and he had a Norwegian passport within an hour!
After his time in Alcoy, during which he also visited the front in Madrid, he decided to travel around the world on his way back to Norway. He went by bus and lorry thorough the Middle East, Persia and India, on to China, by ship to the USA, and finally to Europe after seven months.
During the 1939 “winter war” he served at a Scandinavian hospital in Finland where he mainly treated Russian prisoners of war. On his way back to Norway in April 1940 he was told by a Swedish shop assistant that Norway had been invaded by Germany. He made his way to Hegra fortress in Central Norway where he served during the German siege. Hegra Fortress was the last Norwegian resistance to surrender to the Germans, but he had been taken prisoner some days before during a patrol to fetch a wounded Norwegian soldier. He was interned at Værnes airport outside of Trondheim which was bombed by British airplanes. He was lightly wounded and proud of the scar it left. After a short imprisonment he was released and returned to his job at Stavanger hospital.
When he became aware in 1941 that there was a need for medical doctors with the Norwegian forces who were fighting with the Allies, he travelled to the neutral Stockholm where his father was stationed as a diplomat. He obtained a German exit visa from Norway because of his Icelandic nationality. Iceland was at that time a neutral country. His father obtained permission from the Russian ambassador, Madame Kolontay, for him to travel through Russia and after seven days in a sealed carriage on the Trans-Siberian railway he went by ship from Vladivostok to Canada where he reported to the Norwegian air force in “Little Norway”. He practiced aviation medicine with the Norwegian forces in Canada until he was asked by his previous boss during the Finnish war to come to London. He spent the rest of the Second World War there ending as the head of the Royal Norwegian naval medical service. During his time in London he was sent by submarine to Spitsbergen and also shipwrecked when a Norwegian corvette hit a mine. He also met his English wife, Suzannah, who was working as a chauffeur for an admiral in the Norwegian navy. He had by this time served in the Norwegian army, air force and navy without being a Norwegian citizen.
After the war they returned to Oslo and he started a private practice as a radiologist. However, he retained his love for travel and mainly worked six months and travelled six months a year. My parents made numerous trips to the Middle East and to Latin America, and in 1966 bought a second hand VW in Germany and drove it to New Dehli and back. In 1950 they bought a chalet in Calpe, Spain and the family spent very long summer holidays there. The authorities were not aware of his past in Alcoy. The trip from Oslo to Calpe by car took ten days in the 1950’s.
After retiring in 1977 he spent most of his time in Calpe and died there in 1986. He is buried in Calpe and probably very happy to be spending the rest of eternity in Spain.
13.2.2014 Vilh. Finsen