Kirsten Brunvoll, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetKirsten Brunvoll
Norwegian resistance member
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Lier, Buskerud, Norway
About Kirsten Brunvoll
- Kirsten Brunvoll, née Sørsdal (24 December 1895 – 5 April 1976) was a Norwegian playwright, resistance member, Nacht und Nebel prisoner, World War II memoirist and politician for the Labour Party. She was born in Lier to blacksmith Gabriel Sørsdal and Kristiane Zell.
- She married Jonas Brunvoll in 1919, and had two sons Jonas and Gunnar.
- The family settled at Jar in Bærum.
- Between 1929 and 1939 she was a prolific playwright, mostly writing comedic plays.During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany the Brunvoll family took part in civil resistance; the whole family contributed to production and distribution of the illegal newspapers Norge and Norge Krigsnytt.
- When the undercover newspaper organization was discovered by the Gestapo in 1941, several family members were arrested.
- Kirsten Brunvoll's husband and her son Jonas ended up in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, but both survived the war.
- Gunnar escaped to Sweden and further to Great Britain and Canada, where he was trained as a pilot.Kirsten Brunvoll was arrested and incarcerated at the Grini concentration camp in January 1942, and was transferred to Germany, to Ravensbrück, a camp specifically for women, in February 1943.
- While in Ravensbrück, being unfit for slave labour due to illness, she was selected for "transport", and ended up at the Majdanek concentration camp in German occupied Poland.
- She was later transferred to the extermination camp Birkenau, a subcamp of the Auschwitz concentration camp system, where she arrived in 1944.
- Since the Birkenau gas chambers were designated specifically for killing Jews, the camp authorities had SS physicians sort out non-Jews based on their ability to work.
- Brunvoll reported she was fit for work, asking for a position as knitter.
- The following winter she was sent for transport again, a long walk under harsh conditions.
- The weakest women, those who could not keep up with the others, received no mercy and were shot by the German SS guards, their corpses left behind.
- Brunvoll ended up back in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
- She was eventually rescued by the White Buses.Brunvoll published the memoir book Veien til Auschwitz in 1947.
- She also issued one last play, Lønningsdag ("Pay Day") in 1948.
- She served as a deputy representative to the Parliament of Norway from Akershus during the terms 1945–1949 and 1950–1953.
- In total she met during 17 days of parliamentary session.
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