A World Gone Mad: The Wartime Diaries

by Astrid Lindgren

  In Russia, ‘37,000 men’ have been mown down, all told.

  Finland’s fronts are holding nice and firm.

  Here in Sweden there have been a lot of call-ups in recent days. Foreign Minister Günther said in a briefing yesterday that our position, though serious, hasn’t got any worse, but the country needs to strengthen its defences now spring is coming. I daresay they’re expecting a British attack on Norway. But there’s still no sign of spring. Here in Stockholm it’s been below zero since 5 January; the whole Baltic’s packed with ice, Gotland’s cut off – it’s a simply diabolical winter – the third in a row – and a total torment. Personally I can’t remember a longer winter but I expect that’s because of the cough Karin’s had – it started four months ago today and at the moment she’s in my bed, just the same as she was then, with a cough, a runny nose and a temperature. We took her for an X-ray: it showed a now-healed inflammation of the left lung, and the cardiogram showed that the inflammation has affected the heart muscles; there’s a murmur. Ottander says he thinks it will gradually pass, but what if it doesn’t? I’m so tired of, so anxious about, her wretched cough and poor health generally that it’s currently worrying me more than the whole world war.

  16 MARCH

  Karin’s been to the doctor’s and she’s almost better now, and the heart murmur is much improved. But she had a few pus cells in her urine, which will be treated with some kind of sulphonamide preparation.

  I don’t think I wrote about Java capitulating, in the course of which 98,000 Dutch and British were taken prisoner. The Dutch empire no longer exists – and what about its British counterpart? Australia is expecting an attack.

  In Riom, they’re holding trials of those responsible for the destruction of France.

  The situation has been critical here in Sweden and possibly still is. We’ve had evacuation instructions – and yet we seem to be taking everything relatively calmly, compared to the start of the war, when we simply couldn’t stop talking about the evacuation when we met at the park.

  Seventeen [Norwegian] newspapers were impounded yesterday for a report on conditions in Norwegian prisons. If it’s true – and there’s no reason to doubt it – then it’s so shockingly horrific that it makes you feel sick to read about it. Pure sadism and medieval torture. Malnutrition is becoming widespread among the Norwegian people.

  Here in Sweden there’s still food, but we’re definitely starting to feel the pinch. We’re getting less and less meat – and come the summer I expect our ration will be pretty limited. I haven’t the stamina to write about all this misery.

  GOOD FRIDAY

  The snow’s back after a couple of days of fine weather and dry streets. I don’t think spring will ever come this year – after the coldest winter since meteorological records began.

  Under cover of the blizzard, the 11 Norwegian ships that have been in the port of Göteborg since the Germans occupied Norway tried to make for the British Isles. The Swedish government had impounded them until it was clear who the rightful owners were. Germany laid claim to them, of course, but didn’t get them – following the Supreme Court ruling the other day. Every Norwegian in Sweden, or so it seemed, saw a chance to escape to Britain. But the Germans were waiting like beasts of prey just outside Swedish territorial waters and three ships were set on fire, two returned to Göteborg and six were apparently chased out to sea. In our letters we’ve had so many accounts of the Norwegians who thought they would try their luck this way that the sinking of these ships feels particularly ghastly, just because the whole enterprise was so foolhardy from the start. Those on board must have had to accept that the voyage could be their last.

  And here I sit in my home that’s all spick and span for Easter, as if there were nothing bad or evil in the world. Tomorrow I shall have been married 11 years. Karin’s caught another cold, which I hope is now on the way out. It’s our first Easter in our new home on Dalagatan and Karin’s pleased that there will be so many places to hide the eggs, i.e., the children’s chocolate eggs. Scarcely a soul has any real eggs in this town, but I was able to borrow 12 from Anne-Marie, who gets an extra allocation because Stellan’s ill.

  To go back to world politics, things seem to be stagnating a bit for the Japanese in the Pacific. There’s been no sign of any invasion of Australia. I don’t really know what’s going on in Russia; I suppose the German spring offensive won’t be getting under way just yet.

  19 APRIL

  The Americans have bombed Tokyo, which has been a cause for great rejoicing in the USA. I scarcely know what’s happening in the world nowadays, but Russia’s presumably still fighting at full throttle, to judge by the news we hear of numbers dead and exterminated.

  Laval has come back into the French government; he seems to be some sort of Quisling, supposed to bring France closer to Germany.

  The British are engaged in heavy bombing of Germany.

  In Stockholm yesterday we had the highest April temperatures since 1880, according to the records: 23°. And a fortnight ago it was snowing heavily. Now it’s nice and dry everywhere, the sun’s shining and it’s warm, as I said. But I expect it will turn cold again. Today all four of us were out at Haga Park in the morning. Then Karin and I went to the pictures and saw a Marx Brothers film. Sture’s living for the exhibition (Motormännen 42) that M. is putting on. Lars went off for a walk in the suit he’s slightly grown out of. He’ll be getting a new one at confirmation time. That’ll use up masses of coupons.

  We’ll definitely have very restricted amounts of meat by the summer. The occasional egg has at last started to pop up from time to time. Butter seems scarce to me, but it may well get worse.

  The king had an operation for bladder stones, I don’t know if I wrote about that before, and came through it well, which we were all glad to hear.

  In Norway there’s great discord among the clergy and Bishop Berggrav was almost sent to a concentration camp in Germany, but for some reason it didn’t happen.

  I’m reading Remarque’s refugee book Liebe Deinen Nächsten [Love Thy Neighbour, published in English as Flotsam], which describes the Via Dolorosa of all the Jewish emigrants. It’s appalling, and from what I see at work I can confirm the truth of it.

  All round Europe people are keeling over in the street and dying of starvation – things are probably worst in Greece – but it’s frightful in France and Belgium too.

  12 MAY

  Since I last wrote, Hitler has made a speech, which I should paste in here, but it was so long I can’t be bothered. The speech was remarkable, however, for seeming to hint at internal divisions in Germany, because Hitler requested – and got – exceptional powers to add to those he already had – to stamp out war fatigue in whatever form it showed itself and to remove from office all individuals not rising to the demands of the hour. ‘The demands of the hour’ must be rather difficult for Germany at the moment – that was the main impression one got from the speech – and at work we immediately noticed obvious despondency about Germany’s ability to win. The speech has resulted in a similar reaction in various parts of the world, in fact. Faith in German victory is pretty minimal.

  I wrote about Hitler’s speech first, just because it ought to come in chronological order; but in fact there’s a hideously more important thing that should have come first under this day’s date – today, for the first time in this war, we’ve heard reports of the use of GAS – and it wouldn’t surprise me if this is the prelude to an even nastier phase of this nasty war. I wrote once during the Finnish winter war that the Russians had used gas – but then no more was heard of it, so perhaps it wasn’t true. Now, though, the Germans have started using some kind of nerve gas down in the Crimea, which caught the Russian soldiers unawares. According to Aftonbladet, this nerve gas isn’t fatal but just stuns its targets so they can be taken captive. But once it’s started, you can be sure that in no time they’ll start using the most horrendous of gases. We started to think something was up when Churchill made a sp
eech the other day, warning the Germans against using gas; because if they did, Britain would retaliate by hurling huge amounts of the stuff down on Germany. German preparations for the gas war naturally couldn’t be kept secret. Of course it’s surprising in a way that the Germans didn’t heed the warning when they must realize the implications for their own people of a gas war with no holds barred. But then humanity has simply and irredeemably taken leave of its senses. There they all are, Britain, America, Russia and Germany, hollering about the ghastliest lethal gases they’ve got stocks of – as if that were anything to boast about, when they actually agreed from the outset not to use gas. (Ha, ha!) And of course it’s evident that Germany sees its own situation as precarious, if it has to resort to weapons of that kind to bring things to a head on the eastern front.

  Plenty of other things have happened since last time. The prime minister of Denmark, Stauning, has died. He was the one who in a speech in Lund long ago argued against the idea of a Nordic defence union. It would be entertaining to know how things would actually look up here in the north at the moment, if such a union had been set up in the years before the war. Maybe the whole region would be untouched now!

  Also, the British have occupied Madagascar despite French opposition. Laval is taking France closer to the Axis Powers, which is causing serious complications for its relations with Britain and the USA.

  And Hitler and Musso had another little meeting – I expect it was to agree to start the gassing again. Any encounter between those two generally has some immediate and fiendish outcome.

  Today’s official reports contained distressing news about the food situation in Finland. It seems they’ve neither enough cereal seed nor enough seed potatoes to plant. So how will they cope next winter? If things get any worse than they are already, the lot of them will starve to death. Gunnar went over there to organize agricultural assistance from here in Sweden, but what use is extra labour if there’s nothing to sow or plant? Poor, poor Finns – our streets are full of disabled Finnish soldiers, some of whom look not much older than Lars, hopping on one leg or with only one arm...

  Apart from that, we’re waiting for rain. If Our Lord doesn’t take mercy on us and let us have a good harvest this year, there’ll be hunger here, too – that’s definite. It’s already getting quite hard to devise meals – even if things are grand for us, compared to other people.

  Recent reports have included some lavish words of praise from foreigners for us, the hitherto much-decried Swedes. We were said to be ‘a nation of Samaritans’, among other things. And I think it’s true that we are helping as best we can.

  The Germans have carried out numerous executions by firing squad in the occupied countries recently – 18 young Norwegians, 72 Dutch, a lot of French, all for assaults on Germans. But how can there be anything else but assaults when they make themselves so hated everywhere?

  Well, that’s how the world looks in this year of grace 1942, and a confoundedly cold and unpleasant year it’s been, too. The day after tomorrow on Ascension Day, Lars and Göran are getting confirmed. Can’t there be an end to the war soon, please can’t there? What sort of future will there be otherwise for those who are young and on the threshold of the world? How hard it will be to inherit a bloody, hideous wasteland of a world, gassed and wretched in every way.

  21 MAY

  The gas turned out to be a hoax. The reporter responsible for the story was ordered to leave Berlin at once. So far there’s no gas war then, at any rate.

  Karin turned eight today. In previous years it’s always been summer and warm but this year we’ve had rain, to our indescribable delight; today it’s dry, but cold and raw. Karin’s presents comprised Lasse’s old watch (‘Just think, it still works,’ Linnéa overheard her whispering, enraptured, on the way to school), a suitcase, a purse, two books, a box of chocolates, flowers, a total of 12 kronor from various people, several bookmarks and a slate. Matte and Elsa-Lena came round with their mothers, and Karin Bené was here too.

  The mums talked coupons and food, as they always do these days, and Elsa, who recently had a visit from an undernourished Greta Wikberg from Finland, told us what’s on the menu in a well-to-do Helsinki home nowadays. In the morning rye-flour porridge without bread or milk, for lunch rye-flour porridge with a piece of bread and 1dl milk, for dinner boiled frozen potatoes with grated swede, for which one has queued for hours, with possibly a little thin fruit soup to follow, then in the evening lingonberry-leaf tea and a bit of bread, and that’s it. Why, our rations are pure gluttony, though we think them stingy.

  Oh, and Lars was confirmed on 14 May in Adolf Fredrik Church along with 43 other lads. Afterwards we had a ‘reception’ with wine, coffee, cake and biscuits. Elsa, Alli, Lecka, Pelle Viridén and Matte, Elsa-Lena and Peter here.

  We gave Lars a watch and he had cufflinks from Lecka and a four- colour pen from Elsa and Alli – and some flowers besides. Then we had a family dinner of smörgåsbord, guinea fowl and cake. We certainly are well off in this land of Sweden.

  [Typed transcript of a letter from Holland, from Astrid’s work at the censor’s office.]

  5 JULY

  Since last time, plenty’s happened that I’ve neglected to write about. The main focus of interest has been the Desert War. Rommel’s been storming ahead and is now a good way into Egypt, threatening Alexandria and Cairo. These past few days we’ve been constantly expecting to hear that Alexandria’s fallen into German hands, but just for the moment there seems to be a short-lived pause. Tobruk, which has been fought over avidly, fell a short time ago, and in the process many British soldiers were taken captive by the Germans. The Italians seem to have joined in the fighting for once. Rommel’s so skilful that the British have virtually made him a national hero for having routed the Eighth Army.

  To think that it’s now over a year since the Germans marched on Russia. It would all be over and done with before the winter, they said, but instead the German army got frozen in and had to endure terrible hardships. As for the big spring offensive they kept bragging about, there’s been no sign of it, even if the Germans have made some advances and awful, bloody battles have been raging in the Crimea, where Sebastopol recently fell.

  A Swedish steamship, the Ada Gorthon, was torpedoed in Swedish waters by a Russian submarine and another had a Russian torpedo fired at it, off Västervik.

  Sweden seems to be producing a good harvest, thank God, because there would have been famine otherwise. We’ve had so much rain and it’s been dreadfully cold. I had my first outdoor swim yesterday, 4 July, down by the boatyard. I was in Vimmerby for three weeks but it was no good for swimming, too cold and windy. Now I’m in Furusund with Sture, Karin and Gunvor and hope we can get down to bathing in earnest. Karin’s so well now – at last – after her persistent winter cough. Lars has stayed on at Näs and is trying his hand at farming. He and I had a nice four-day cycling trip: Vimmerby – Horn – Kisa – Norra Vi – Tranås – Skurugata – Eksjö – Hult – Bällö [now Bellö] – Kråkshult – Vimmerby. How beautiful Småland is.

  We’re not getting any coal from Germany and are finding it terribly hard to produce any wood domestically, so the fuel situation for the winter looks pretty ominous. You now need a licence to buy wood, so I don’t suppose we’ll get much benefit from our open fireplace this winter. Please let there be no more dreadful winters like the three in a row we’ve just had.

  18 AUGUST

  We heard on the news tonight that a foreign submarine has sunk another Swedish steamship in Swedish waters off Västervik. This is the third, or maybe even the fourth, Swedish ship to go down in similar circumstances. I’ll be damned! Our letter-writers seem convinced the Germans are behind it, using Russian submarines to stir us up against Russia.

  The Swedish navy is escorting the convoys and there are claims in our letters that they’ve sunk several subs with depth charges. We can only hope it’s true. The Russians stubbornly deny any part in the deed.

  A couple of spies wer
e taken to Stockholm today, for possession of a secret radio transmitter. Father and son, the father Russian by birth. Now a Swedish citizen.

  Black marketeers are getting caught every day. There’s a whole other economy flourishing alongside rationing.

  Churchill, whom Kar de Mumma calls ‘Kurrill’, has been to visit Stalin. He made the V sign while he was there, which the Russians interpreted as a promise of a second front.

  The British have been having a lot of trouble in India. The Hindus are trying everything in their power to exploit the war to set themselves free (and would then give double the help to Britain, they claim) but Britain doesn’t want that and Gandhi, his wife and various others have been arrested. Serious acts of violence and unrest are the order of the day.

  5 SEPTEMBER

  Three years of war

  The war is three years old and I have not celebrated its birthday. We’ve all found our attitude to the war gradually changing. We used to talk about it all the time; now we see it as a necessary evil, to be thought of and talked about as little as possible. What we really do talk about is how little meat we get on the ration and how many eggs we’ve managed to lay hands on beyond our allocation, whether it’ll be a cold winter, how many French beans we’ve managed to bottle, and so on in the same vein. Food means everything – and yet we’re still well off for it. You hardly ever see meat and there’s not much fish to be had, at least not in Stockholm. So when we had roast lamb for dinner today, it put us in quite a ceremonial mood – and it was delicious, too. I thought about the Russian and French prisoners of war in the German ports: according to letters from Swedish sailors they’re on the verge of starvation and go round hunting for potato peelings in dustbins. So, whatever I may say – we don’t forget the war. There’s a current of despair running beneath everything all the time, and it’s constantly fed by the accounts in the newspapers. In Greece there are still several thousand people dying of hunger every day; no one has the energy to bury them so they’re simply thrown into a cemetery. And there’s another wartime winter on the way – dear God have mercy on us. There’s currently a furious battle in progress for Stalingrad; the Germans are making gains in Russia – but I’m sure nothing conclusive is going to happen before the winter. The summer is warmer than ever and in full and lovely bloom; it was pretty cold earlier on but now it’s gorgeous and all the crops are ripening like mad. It’s definitely going to be a good harvest this year, thank goodness.