Nini Haslund Gleditsch
Encyclopedia
Nini Haslund Gleditsch was a Norwegian political activist and advocate for peace
Peace activist
This list of peace activists includes people who proactively advocate diplomatic, non-military resolution of political disputes, usually through nonviolent means.A peace activist is an activist of the peace movement.*Jane Addams*Martti Ahtisaari...

.

Personal life

Nini (née Ingrid Margaret Haslund) was born in Moss
Moss, Norway
is a coastal city and a municipality in Østfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Moss. The city of Moss was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838...

 as the daughter of deputy education officer Johannes Emmanuel Haslund and Aagot Mathilde Løken. She married fellow Mot Dag activist and geodesist
Geodesy
Geodesy , also named geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also study geodynamical phenomena such as crustal...

 Kristian Gleditsch
Kristian Gleditsch
Kristian Gleditsch, MBE was a Norwegian Mot Dag activist and geodesist.He was born in Tromsøysund as a son of headmaster Karl Kristian Gleditsch and Petra Birgitte Hansen . His family moved to Trondhjem and then Fredrikshald in 1905. From 1913 he lived with his sister Ellen Gleditsch...

 in 1934. She died in Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

 in 1996.

Pre-war career

While working as a joiner
Joiner
A joiner differs from a carpenter in that joiners cut and fit joints in wood that do not use nails. Joiners usually work in a workshop since the formation of various joints generally requires non-portable machinery. A carpenter normally works on site...

's mate in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 in the late 1920s she was part of the circle around the organization Clarté. She moved to Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

 as a student in 1930. In the early 1930s she joined the leftist organization Mot Dag
Mot Dag
Mot Dag was a Norwegian periodical and a communist organization with the same name.It was established in 1921 under the initiative of Erling Falk, partly with origins in the debate forum in the Social Democratic student government in Oslo ; partly from a Falk-led study circle which from 1919...

. She worked full time with publishing house Fram Forlag
Fram Forlag
Fram Forlag was a Norwegian publishing company. It was established as a publishing house for the organization Mot Dag in 1929, with Erling Falk as the founder and Torolf Elster as an early associate. The company was taken over by Tiden Norsk Forlag in 1936....

, and contributed to the development of the workers' encyclopaedia Arbeidernes Leksikon
Arbeidernes Leksikon
Arbeidernes Leksikon is a Norwegian encyclopedia published in six volumes in the 1930s.It was the first reference book in Norwegian to have a pronounced class bias, and the first encyclopedia outside of the Soviet Union to be directed specifically at the working class...

. She participated in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

 from 1937 to 1939, by organizing international humanitarian aid.

World War II

During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 she participated in the flight of the Norwegian National Treasury
Flight of the Norwegian National Treasury
The National Treasury of Norway consisted of in 1940 value worth of gold weighing around 50 tons. The entire gold deposit was stored at Norges Bank's main vault at their headquarters in Oslo. During the increasing tension of the 1930s, plans were made to make the deposit more mobile...

 to England in 1940, on the stage between Åndalsnes
Åndalsnes
is a town in the municipality of Rauma in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. Åndalsnes is the administrative center of Rauma. The town has a population of 2,207...

 and Tromsø
Tromsø
Tromsø is a city and municipality in Troms county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø.Tromsø city is the ninth largest urban area in Norway by population, and the seventh largest city in Norway by population...

. She and her husband were responsible for the transport of two coffins of the "light luggage" (bank notes) by car from Åndalsnes to Molde. One third of the gold was sent with the British cruiser HMS Galatea
HMS Galatea (71)
HMS Galatea was an Arethusa-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was built by Scotts Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. , with the keel being laid down on the 2 June 1933...

 from Åndalsnes to United Kingdom, while 24 trucks brought the rest to Molde
Molde
is a city and municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Romsdal region. The municipality is located on the Romsdal Peninsula, surrounding the Fannefjord and Moldefjord...

. Nini followed the transport of four truckloads of gold by ships from Molde to Tromsø, first part with the coastal steamer SS Driva, and later the ten tons of gold was distributed on smaller fishing vessel
Fishing vessel
A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to catch fish in the sea, or on a lake or river. Many different kinds of vessels are used in commercial, artisanal and recreational fishing....

s. During the transport Driva was attacked by German bombers, but managed to escape from the bombs. She then worked for Minister Anders Frihagen at the Ministry of Trade in Balsfjord
Balsfjord
Balsfjord is a municipality in Troms county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Storsteinnes, while Nordkjosbotn at the head of the fjord is another village....

. When Terje Wold
Terje Wold
Terje Wold was a Norwegian judge and politician for the Labour Party.Terje Wold was born in Evenes. He graduated as cand.jur. in 1921. He worked as a jurist, becoming a Supreme Court Justice of Norway in 1950. From 1958 to 1969 he was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court...

 took over the Ministry, Haslund Gleditsch started working for Trygve Lie
Trygve Lie
Trygve Halvdan Lie was a Norwegian politician, labour leader, government official and author. He served as Norwegian Foreign minister during the critical years of the Norwegian government in exile in London from 1940 to 1945. From 1946 to 1952 he was the first Secretary-General of the United...

 at the Ministry of Supply. She followed the British cruiser from Tromsø to Greenock
Greenock
Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...

 in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, along with part of the Norwegian Government and the Norwegian Royal Family
Norwegian Royal Family
The Royal Family of Norway is the family of King Harald V of Norway. In Norway there is a distinction between the Royal House and the Royal Family. The Royal House includes only the King and his spouse, the Queen, the King's eldest son with spouse, being the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, and the...

. From 1940 to 1945 she worked as a secretary with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Norwegian government-in-exile in London.

Post-war career

In the 1950s, while a housewife with young children, she was active in feminist organizations, and also co-edited the magazine Kvinnen og Tiden from 1953 to 1955. Along with her husband she wrote the memoir book Glimt fra kampårene, published in 1954. She worked with the Statistics Norway
Statistics Norway
Statistics Norway is the Norwegian statistics bureau. It was established in 1876.Relying on a staff of about 1,000, Statistics Norway publish about 1,000 new statistical releases every year on its web site. All releases are published both in Norwegian and English...

  from 1960 to 1978. She was a co-founder of the political publishing house Pax Forlag
Pax Forlag
Pax Forlag is a Norwegian publishing house, established in 1964.Pax Forlag has issued a selected reprint of the "working class" encyclopaedia Arbeidernes Leksikon in 1974, and the political encyclopaedia Pax Leksikon ....

 in 1964. In her older days she was active in the anti-nuclear organization Bestemødre mot atomvåpen
Bestemødre mot atomvåpen
Bestemødre mot atomvåpen was a Norwegian anti-nuclear organisation, founded in Oslo in 1983. Each Wednesday during the school term, they demonstrated against nuclear arms at the square Stortings plass in Oslo...

 (Grandmothers against nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...

s).
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