Olav Brunvand

Who was Olav Brunvand?

Olav Arnold Brunvand was a Norwegian newspaper editor and politician for the Labour Party.

He was born in Kristiansand as a son of tailor Olav Brunvand, Sr. and Anna Olsen. In 1936 he married Åsta Bergliot Strømme. His father was a Social Democratic ballot candidate in the Market towns of Vest-Agder and Rogaland counties for the 1921 general election but was not elected.

He worked as a journalist in Sørlandet from 1934, and in Bergens Arbeiderblad from 1939. These newspapers belonged to the Labour Party, and were thus subject to repression during the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1945; Brunvand was imprisoned by the Germans from 1941 to 1945. He was arrested in October 1941, spent time in Ulven concentration camp in November before being sent via Bergen to Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel in December. In August 1943 he was transferred to Rendsburg, later to Dreibergen. During his stay in German prisons he made notes which were later published in newspaper articles, and issued in 1968 as the book Smil og tårer i tukthus. The manuscript was written on toilet paper and smuggled out by Hiltgunt Zassenhaus, who buried it and sent it to Brunvand after he had returned to Bergen in 1945.