Norway Norway - Isdalen, WhtFem 503UFNOR, multiple aliases, multilingual, Nov'70

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gabagool said:
she could have been a part of a serbian/croatian separatist group, which would tie her to the swiss banker thing. udba did a lot of hits in skandinavia in the 60s and 70s. (im still waffleing on about the south slavic thing, but i know 3 women from sisak and 4 from osijek who look exactly like her composite) probably not serbian tho bcs cyrilics would be her go to in the shorthand cypher. im planing on going to the archive and checking some udba files, but i doubt there's anything uncensored there.UDBA – Wikipedia
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I think a very plausible scenario is that her mother was from Yugoslavia (Slovenia) Roma Haplogroup H24 and her father was German, thus she was born in Nuremberg pre-war Nazi Germany. I was thinking she "may" have been one of the Kindertransport children taken out of Germany before the war started. This could explain the "Wales" map hotspot in her childhood. She also had a hotspot on the French border, question is how long was she there? She clearly learned a traditional French style of copybook writing somewhere. The KT program took mainly Jewish kids out of Germany over the Swiss border by train then by ship to the UK. I don't ever remember reading gypsies were taken too, but I could be wrong. There's monstrous important gaps in IW's timeline from WWII to 1970, and that's just reality. I do think at some point she had a connection to the East German Stasi because of the "Kreisleitung" term she used, but nothing is certain. She could of wrote down remembered things from her WWII era life too. Another thing I just remembered is an alleged witness said IW wanted to by a set of silverware from her store in Bergen, and it was to be sent to Germany somewhere. To her home? A relative? Or just a way to covertly pass some gathered information to say the GDR/East Germans Stasi/KGB? hmm...
 
djtopcat said:
I think a very plausible scenario is that her mother was from Yugoslavia (Slovenia) Roma Haplogroup H24 and her father was German, thus she was born in Nuremberg pre-war Nazi Germany. I was thinking she "may" have been one of the Kindertransport children taken out of Germany before the war started. This could explain the "Wales" map hotspot in her childhood. She also had a hotspot on the French border, question is how long was she there? She clearly learned a traditional French style of copybook writing somewhere. The KT program took mainly Jewish kids out of Germany over the Swiss border by train then by ship to the UK. I don't ever remember reading gypsies were taken too, but I could be wrong. There's monstrous important gaps in IW's timeline from WWII to 1970, and that's just reality. I do think at some point she had a connection to the East German Stasi because of the "Kreisleitung" term she used, but nothing is certain. She could of wrote down remembered things from her WWII era life too. Another thing I just remembered is an alleged witness said IW wanted to by a set of silverware from her store in Bergen, and it was to be sent to Germany somewhere. To her home? A relative? Or just a way to covertly pass some gathered information to say the GDR/East Germans Stasi/KGB? hmm...
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didn't they say she spoke better french than german? thats been nagging at me for a while.
 
gabagool said:
didn't they say she spoke better french than german? thats been nagging at me for a while.
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Hmm.. not as I recall I believe she just spoke English and German to witnesses. With one polyglot hotel employee recognizing a distinct East German dialect.
Full VG doc in Norwegian but with English subtitles.
www.vg.no

Mystery at the Oslo Plaza

In a room at the Oslo Plaza Hotel, a young, elegant woman is found dead, with a gun shot wound to the head. Why did she check in under a false name? Why are the labels removed from her clothes? Why has no one reported her missing? After 22 years, her grave is re-opened.
www.vg.no
 
djtopcat said:
Hmm.. not as I recall I believe she just spoke English and German to witnesses. With one polyglot hotel employee recognizing a distinct East German dialect.
Full VG doc in Norwegian but with English subtitles.
www.vg.no

Mystery at the Oslo Plaza

In a room at the Oslo Plaza Hotel, a young, elegant woman is found dead, with a gun shot wound to the head. Why did she check in under a false name? Why are the labels removed from her clothes? Why has no one reported her missing? After 22 years, her grave is re-opened.
www.vg.no
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also i think this is about jennifer fegrate, IW spoke french best
 
It appears IW was a clear polyglot. Alleged witnesses said she spoke in what sounded like a distinct "Balkan" accent. She was said to have had a noticeable "lisp" and could not pronounce words with the "th" sound. Of note many parts of Europe do not teach that sound in school which involves using the tongue and teeth. Notably Eastern Europe such as the Balkan countries. For example I found this in a language discussion about the "th" sound pronunciation.
"Russians, French and Germans, for example, substitute "th" with "s" or "z" sounds. Instead of "I think" they would say "I sink" hmm... I believe this is what the witnesses heard.
According to Norwegian witnesses her German was her best and most natural sounding, but her French was deemed to be more "academic" and definitely not her native language. Very curious.
 
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I am also thinking she may have been involved in organized crime of some sorts, maybe industrial espionage (but there would have been sightings at companies and factories that are not reported) or a high class escort who traveled to meet her high profile top secret customers and kept disguise and fake passports in case she gets arrested (prostitution was illegal in many countries, not sure about Norway). Many prostitutes went under multiple aliases.

What makes me wonder is that she always gave professions from the art trade and art manufacturing as her profession (gilder, antiques trader). There should be a connection.
 
djtopcat said:
It appears IW was a clear polyglot. Alleged witnesses said she spoke in what sounded like a distinct "Balkan" accent. She was said to have had a noticeable "lisp" and could not pronounce words with the "th" sound. Of note many parts of Europe do not teach that sound in school which involves using the tongue and teeth. Notably Eastern Europe such as the Balkan countries. For example I found this in a language discussion about the "th" sound pronunciation.
"Russians, French and Germans, for example, substitute "th" with "s" or "z" sounds. Instead of "I think" they would say "I sink" hmm... I believe this is what the witnesses heard.
According to Norwegian witnesses her German was her best and most natural sounding, but her French was deemed to be more "academic" and definitely not her native language. Very curious.
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Her handwriting is definitely Middle European, not Balkan and not a second acquired writing by a Cyrillic writer and the spelling of the German words is immaculate and correct. She is german or maybe french or belgian.
 
Susikatze said:
Her handwriting is definitely Middle European, not Balkan and not a second acquired writing by a Cyrillic writer and the spelling of the German words is immaculate and correct. She is german or maybe french or belgian.
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Probably nothing, but my Belgian take on the writings:
She writes “Brüssel”. It’s the german form of Brussels(Eng)/Bruxelles(Fr)/Brussel(Dutch).

Not a lot of people ‘translate’ their adress while writing their adress. If they do, it’s mostly English. I’ve been in German speaking countries, as do my friends&family, and none of them ever translated their adress in German.

There is a German piece of Belgium. So i would rather say that IF she was Belgian, she was raised in German than beïng a flemish/french speaking Belgian.
 
Susikatze said:
I am also thinking she may have been involved in organized crime of some sorts, maybe industrial espionage (but there would have been sightings at companies and factories that are not reported) or a high class escort who traveled to meet her high profile top secret customers and kept disguise and fake passports in case she gets arrested (prostitution was illegal in many countries, not sure about Norway). Many prostitutes went under multiple aliases.

What makes me wonder is that she always gave professions from the art trade and art manufacturing as her profession (gilder, antiques trader). There should be a connection.
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The art/antique trade, theft, smuggling... something along these lines... makes the most sense to me. I'm not trying to make her out to be the greatest art smuggler of all time but rather just a bit of a shady dealer across borders. ETA: While many thieves abhorred the idea of cutting the art from the frame, others did... it made the paintings easier to roll and transport. A scalpel (like the one IW had) could make a great tool for quickly removing the canvas from the frame.

'Just a few weeks ago I found myself reading about a major art heist across the Iron Curtain in 1979 (linked below). The UID wouldn't have to be involved in art of such high value but... maybe on a MUCH lower scale??

On a stormy night in December 1979, thieves broke into Friedenstein Castle in Gotha, Germany, and escaped with a spectacular haul: five paintings by European Old Masters, including portraits by German painter Hans Holbein the Elder and Dutch artist Frans Hals.

Police have never officially accused anyone of the crime, notes Tessa Solomon for ARTNews. But von Hammerstein argues that the heist was the work of Rudi Bernhardt, an East German train driver who supposedly smuggled the paintings across the Iron Curtain to a couple in West Germany. Bernhardt died in 2016.

www.smithsonianmag.com

A Painting Stolen in East Germany's Biggest Art Heist May Be a Rembrandt

An exhibition at Schloss Friedenstein addresses two art history mysteries: one about the 16th-century Dutch portrait and another about the 1979 theft
www.smithsonianmag.com www.smithsonianmag.com
 
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Carovb5 said:
Probably nothing, but my Belgian take on the writings:
She writes “Brüssel”. It’s the german form of Brussels(Eng)/Bruxelles(Fr)/Brussel(Dutch).

Not a lot of people ‘translate’ their adress while writing their adress. If they do, it’s mostly English. I’ve been in German speaking countries, as do my friends&family, and none of them ever translated their adress in German.

There is a German piece of Belgium. So i would rather say that IF she was Belgian, she was raised in German than beïng a flemish/french speaking Belgian.
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Eupen-Malmedy is the German-speaking region of Belgium.
en.m.wikipedia.org

Eupen-Malmedy - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
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ifindedout said:
Eupen-Malmedy is the German-speaking region of Belgium.
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She learned a French style of copybook writing. It's not going to help solve the case, only a DNA match, or bombshell classified file released is going to do that, but it could connect key missing dots from her past. So to recap what we do know based on the later scientific evidence, and details from the 2018 DIIV BBC/NRK podcast. (I do trust the scientific results to a degree)

1. She was Haplogroup type H24 on her mother's side
(H24: found in Britain, Ireland, Spain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Denmark and Finland / found in the Funnelbeaker culutre in Sweden)
2. She was likely born somewhere around the city of Nuremberg Germany pre-WWII (1939) Range could be from 1925 to 1930. So that would make her age 40-45 at the time of her death. Much older than the ME thought in 1970. Why was she trying to be younger?
3. She had gold dental work, very common in Germany, Russia *Far East and Central Europe.
4. She never had children according to ME report.
5. Her body was theorized to have been burned twice, only on the front though. Her back was not burned. Consistent with theory that someone lit her up while she was lying on her back. Perhaps the first attempt failed, so they had to do it again. No evidence of the fuel used was ever found, just one officer stating that her cossack style fur cap found under her smelled strongly of petrol (gasoline)
6. The pills found in her system, *and mouth were Fenamal (Phenobarbital) common sleeping pills. Pink variety not sold in Norway. Definitely sold in the UK, and possibly other countries. I am very curious if Germany, Eastern Europe, or Israel, Middle East too?
7. ME determined she was still alive when she was burned due to soot in her lungs. Was the killer/s rushed? or didn't care as long as she was erased?
8. Norway's secret police based in Oslo investigated after the body was found, and came to the conclusion she was not a spy and not much else. Yet a witnessed item seen in their file in the early 70's has gone missing. (envelope with cassette tape) My theory is that they thought she was involved in espionage during the NATO Penguin missile trials.
The S.P. investigator who came out in 1970 the late Ornulf Tofte told the Death in Ice Valley podcast in 2018 one of the most ridiculous explanations I've ever heard. "She dropped her giant bottle of hairspray in a fire and blew herself up" Lol I was dumbfounded when I first heard that. To me it's pretty clear someone, or some people went to great lengths to prevent not only identifying her (face burned off) but also destroying ways police could trace her (labels scratched out, id gone, no passports, nothing) The investigation was abruptly stopped, and they ruled suicide and that did not sit well with not only Bergen police, but people who covered the case in the press.
9. She specifically stayed in stricter Christian hotels in Norway. She used a lot of Christian names in her writing, and a Christian icon was found in her suitcase. I would assume this is all why the Bergen police gave her a traditional Catholic burial ceremony. Had she been Jewish, Israel would of wanted the body back. They've traded terrorists for dead Mossad/IDF. I personally think she was devout Orthodox, or Catholic, very possibly at least half Roma (gypsy) which would be majority Orthodox.

My personal theory.
There's some connection to Israel still, and it was quietly dealt with behind the scenes by higher authorities than the local police. Very possible her true identity was never known just her connections. The Israel connection was mentioned twice in the DIIV podcast. Once by a crime reporter/writer who covered the case in 1970, and later by the grand daughter of a former Bergen police detective. This would explain why it was never allowed to be solved, and no one ever came forward. International complications *see 1973 Lillehammer. We know she wasn't of Jewish heritage, her maternal test results ruled that out (H24) So who's side was she on? Why was she able to almost spell the very difficult Slovene word "Ljubljana" on a hotel registration if she wasn't familiar with the city? Why did she write Brussels in German form? Why did she write down the rare German district term "Kreisleitung" only used in occupied Nazi areas in WWII. And only later in the GDR by the Stasi after 1945 up until 1989? A shop owner later claimed a woman matching IW's description wanted to buy a special holiday silverware set to be sent back to Germany. Then there was the later claim of the hiker who claims to have seen IW followed by two men with darker skin (Mediterranean) walking up Mt. Floyen as he was descending. Where were they going? So many bizarre possible happenings. :/
 
been doing some reading and found a source that says no more than half a million roma people lived in europe in the interwar period. there are also mentions of roma populations in slovakia. however, in yugoslavia (kingdom), roma were not allowed in major cities so she probably wasn't from ljubljana per say. the odd thing for her being from up north is that there weren't many roma in germany, scandinavia etc. if those communities were small it doesn't make sense to me that nobody noticed her gone, unless her mother/grandmother had cut ties with her people previously IMG_0158.jpeg
 
gabagool said:
been doing some reading and found a source that says no more than half a million roma people lived in europe in the interwar period. there are also mentions of roma populations in slovakia. however, in yugoslavia (kingdom), roma were not allowed in major cities so she probably wasn't from ljubljana per say. the odd thing for her being from up north is that there weren't many roma in germany, scandinavia etc. if those communities were small it doesn't make sense to me that nobody noticed her gone, unless her mother/grandmother had cut ties with her people previously View attachment 494594
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it also says that there were two distinct roma groups in that period and one of them spoke an archaic language that was specific for the area (central to eastern europe)
 
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