This is the piece I am currently making here in Harstad, Norway. Working with the students of the Harstad FHS and their director Hege Fjeld, we are piecing together the hidden stories of Harstad and the history of Trondenes. This spans the timeline from 1942 to 2021.
We are creating the characters and their stories from our research of the history of the location. We will film these monologues and they will be embedded on the storyline map above and audiences will be able to access these via mobile phone on a walk following the map and the locations of the stories.
This series of character monologues will reveal the connections between Gregor, a Russian prisoner of war in the Trondenes camp in 1943, his daughter Svetlana, a writer in Moscow, and her granddaughter, Cora who has recently arrived in Norway as a refugee.
Hans, a German guard stationed here during the second world war, and his two daughters, Anlaug and Liese and their connection to Gregor’s diary handed to Anlaug’s mother, Sandra after Hans left the camp.
Nikolai who worked in the camp as one of the cooks, looked after Gregor in his dying hours and passed his diary to Sandra. His daughter Alexandra was born in Harstad when he met his wife who was a refugee from Finnmark.
Alexandra’s granndaughter Elinor and Svetlana’s granddaughter Cora meet at the Folk High School in Harstad. Here they uncover the Harstad Hidden Stories. Cora discovers her great grandfather Gregor’s story with his diary – and the two women share their connections about refugees and how the young people who once lived their lives here looked across the same sea, at the same landscape and same Northern Lights – but all with a strong and moving set of stories to share…
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