A whole year group vanished into the forest

Place: notodden · Stand-in location

On 19 May 1944 young men born between 1921 and 1923 were called up to Arbeidstjenesten, the NS labour service. In Notodden something remarkable happened: according to the local war history not a single boy in the Notodden district turned up.

Instead many went straight into the forest. Some lived hidden with family and acquaintances; others gradually joined organised groups. It was in this year that the Tysjå group between Dårstul and Meheia came into being – young men who built cabins and depots, were given military training and from the autumn of 1944 formed part of "Operation Sunshine".

It was no operation with explosives or shots. It was a collective decision to disappear out of the occupying power's reach – and that decision became the backbone of the armed resistance in the district in the last year of the war.

This was an event that concerned the whole Notodden district, not one place. The marker is a stand-in anchor on Notodden Torv. Where those called up were supposed to have reported is not given in the sources.

Sources

• Notodden – Krigsradioregisteret — Gjengir at det ved innkallingen av årsklassene 1921–1923 «ikke [møtte] én eneste gutt i Notodden-distriktet», og at de fleste gikk til skogs og etter hvert sluttet seg til motstandsgrupper.
• Den siste Tysjå-gutten er borte – Telen (minneord om Oddvar Kise) — Knytter Arbeidstjeneste-nektingen i 1944 direkte til dannelsen av Tysjå-cellen mellom Dårstul og Meheia og til «Operasjon Sunshine» fra høsten 1944.