My grandfather Barly was a resistance fighter during World War II and he gave his life for what he believed in. He went from being a militant communist to becoming a man of faith. Barly was imprisoned for over three years in German concentration camps and interrogation prisons and during this time he was saved. I have always been interested in what happened to him, as my mother has suffered badly throughout her life due to losing her father at the age of six. Ever since the late 1980s, when my mother gave me all the letters and poems Barly wrote to the family during his captivity, I have wanted to write a book about him. I have therefore researched archives; in both Sweden, Norway and Germany, as well as reading a doctoral thesis and a multitude of both non-fiction books and biographies about the horrors of war. Many families carry traumas that they never process, and this has been my family's great challenge. The outer framework of the story is political and on the inner plane the book is about the great journey of development that Barly takes and whose questions can touch many. I also tell you about my grandmother's mother who was a deeply religious Laestadian and who also had a prophetic gift; she was clairvoyant and a healer. My grandmother's ability has been passed down to me and has facilitated my own contact with Barly. He has long been very clear that I should tell his story. Writing a book has not been easy, however, because I myself see everything in pictures and I felt a resistance to writing a literary text. The whole thing came together when I first wrote the story as a film script. I had the brilliant idea to go to Narvik and present my idea to a film company, which I knew wanted to make a film or TV series about "The Battle of Narvik". I was long considered as one of the scriptwriters for the film, but for various reasons it did not happen. I then had to think again and instead rework my film script into a book script. It has truly been a long pregnancy and a difficult birth, but now the book is here. All the documents in the book are authentic and the main features of the story are true. At my grandfather's own urging, I finally want to honor his memory by making his and his resistance comrades' history known.
FB: Marita Östberg
