I came out on the west side of the
mountains to the North Sea passing crystal clear lakes and deep fiords and arrived
in Bergen about the end of the day. It had
been an eight hour trip from Oslo. When
the train pulled into the station I walked outside and found a vending machine
where I ate a cold slimy eel - a first for me.
They eat a lot of fish in Bergen and you notice it in more ways than one. Like
Norway in general, Bergen is a truly clean and inviting city although somewhat
cold and damp. In 1977 the wharf was
beautiful with all the different multicolored boats and store fronts
illuminated in bright September sunshine.
Tourist guide books say little about
Bergen’s WWII history, but I know some of it.
It’s the port where the German battleship Bismarck left to prey on English shipping until a Swordfish’s torpedo ruined her
rudder. On April 20th, 1944,
Hitler’s birthday, a confiscated trawler loaded with tons of ammunition exploded in the Bergen harbor killing 160 people and blowing up much of the
harbor area. The Germans occupied Norway
to protect their iron ore shipments that arrived in Narvik from Sweden.
Like I did in Munich five years
before, I stumbled onto a communist demonstration held at the Sailor's Monument at the Torgalmenningen, but this was a manly
communist demonstration unlike Munich and I told them it was impressive. The perimeter guard teams accompanied by
Dobermans were resplendent in their black leather outfits and black berets –
just like our Black Panthers, only white.
The color combinations were right out of a Hollywood movie set. The hammer and sickle flag was defiantly
waving. Oddly, their flag and banner
combination of red with gold lettering was the same as the Marine Corps’. When I lifted my camera for a picture, the
red guards told me that photos were forbidden.
That didn’t make sense. Why put
on a colorful demonstration in a busy intersection with no pictures allowed? They didn’t appreciate my criticism of the
absence of English interpreters for us tourists either. I know they must have gone back to their
university dorms for a self-criticism session on this point. I could have also talked to these people all
day about the failures of Dialectical Materialism and Marxism-Leninism, but in
spite of the dogs, I managed to sneak in a picture as I left.