Abelone Karia Larsdatter Møgster (29 October 1883 – 25 November 1975) was a Norwegian businesswoman and war resister arrested by German Nazi occupiers during World War II. She survived three years in Nazi camps. She lived on the island of

Møkster Møkster is an island in Austevoll municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The island lies in an archipelago and it sits north of the islands of Litla Kalsøya, Stolmen, and Selbjørn; west of the islands of Drøna and Rostøya; and south ...

in the Austevoll municipality.

Biography

Abelone Møgster was born in

Austevoll Austevoll is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality and an archipelago in Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Midthordland in Western Norway. The administrative centre ...

, Hordaland, Norway, and started a general store in a boathouse in Vestrevågen on the island of Møkster in Austevoll in 1910. In the 1920s, she borrowed money to build a road to Naustvågen further south on the island to build a new store there, where she believed the harbor conditions were much better. After the road was built, she built a

quay A wharf ( or wharfs), quay ( , also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more Berth (mo ...

and a new general store in Naustvågen. This was ready in the latter part of the 1920s, probably in 1927. From this general store, she traded with "food and drink," as she herself called it. There, she also ran a fishing reception and regular boat expeditions for fishermen and the island's population. She remained unmarried.

War effort

On 25 June 1942, Møgster was arrested by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

who accused her of helping English-speaking people escape from German-occupied Norway to Great Britain. She was captured together with her brother Karl Møgster, known as "old los Møgster," and both were subjected to severe torture and transferred to Bergen District Prison (Prisoner number: 1461). She was later sent to

Grini detention camp Grini prison camp (, ) was a Nazi concentration camp in Bærum, Norway, which operated between 1941 and May 1945. Ila Detention and Security Prison is now located here. History Grini was originally built as a women's prison, near an old croft ...

(Prisoner number: 6185). From there, the journey continued to the women's camp

Ravensbrück concentration camp Ravensbrück () was a Nazi concentration camp exclusively for women from 1939 to 1945, located in northern Germany, north of Berlin at a site near the village of Ravensbrück (part of Fürstenberg/Havel). The camp memorial's estimated figure of 1 ...

(Prisoner number: 20136) as a ''

Nacht und Nebel ''Nacht und Nebel'' ( German: ), meaning Night and Fog, also known as the Night and Fog Decree, was a directive issued by Adolf Hitler on 7 December 1941 targeting political activists and resistance "helpers" in the territories occupied by Na ...

'' (called NN-Deported) prisoner. At the turn of 1944/1945, she was transferred to the

Mauthausen concentration camp Mauthausen was a German Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 f ...

in Austria, which was a pure

extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe, primarily in occupied Poland, during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocau ...

. In mid-March 1945, she was evacuated on the last of the diplomat Folke Bernadotte's

white buses White Buses was a Swedish humanitarian operation with the objective of freeing Scandinavians in German concentration camps in Nazi Germany during the final stages of World War II. Although the White Buses operation was envisioned to rescue Sc ...

that rescued Scandinavian prisoners from Mauthausen to take them home. The journey then took her via Denmark and on to a rehabilitation camp in Sweden. At the beginning of June 1945, she finally returned to Norway and Møkster. When she arrived, she was 62 years old and weighed just . She died 25 November 1975 in Austevoll, Hordaland, Norway, where she was born.

Awards and honors

Abelone Møgster was the oldest Norwegian woman to survive captivity as a Nazi prisoner. In captivity she was nicknamed "The Angel from Ravensbrück" and after the war she received the

King's Medal of Merit The King's Medal of Merit (Norwegian: ''Kongens fortjenstmedalje'') is a Norwegian award. It was instituted in 1908 to reward meritorious achievements in the fields of art, science, business, and public service. It is divided in two classes: gold ...

in gold for her service to Norway. At the turn of the millennium, Abelone Møgster was one of ten people nominated for the award as Westerner of the Century by the newspaper ''

Bergens Tidende is Norway's fifth-largest newspaper, and the country's largest newspaper outside Oslo. is owned by the public company Schibsted ASA. Norwegian owners held a mere 42% of the shares in Schibsted at the end of 2015. History and profile Founded ...

''. In 2011, the fishing vessel named in her honor, ''MS Abelone Møgster,'' was launched.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mogster, Abelone 1883 births 1975 deaths 20th-century Norwegian businesswomen 20th-century Norwegian businesspeople Norwegian activists Norwegian anti-war activists People from Austevoll