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

[dotr]

'Major breakthrough' in Norway's 46-year-old Isdal woman mystery

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39978131

Very exciting and interesting, thanks for posting this!
Wondering if the woman might be Jewish? imo, speculation.
From the link..
rbbm

And while the age of the woman at the time her death was unknown, some of the indicators in the teeth suggest she may have moved just before or during World War II, NRK reports.

NRK's investigative reporters have been working on the mystery for over a year.
"I am starting to believe that we might actually find her real identity," team member Marit Higraff said.
"Now the area that we have to comb is much smaller than even we had hoped for. Maybe this 46-year-old mystery can come to an end."

 

[MarziPanda]

Very exciting and interesting, thanks for posting this!
Wondering if the woman might be Jewish? imo, speculation.
From the link..
rbbm

I wondered that, too. During WW2 a lot of Jewish kids were evacuated to the UK, and particularly to the countryside. The map indicates she spent a lot of time in Wales, and also further into France - or is that more like Switzerland? I can see that happening. You're a young Jewish woman/girl, you see Hitler coming into power and later invading Poland, so you move into France or Switzerland, and then on to the UK when France gets invaded. There's some Spanish activity too, and Spain was for the most part neutral. The Italian and Balkan activity is interesting too... to me it seems that probably occurred after the war. If she was a spy, maybe that's when she was recruited. What other jobs would require a young woman to move around so much? If she was moving around that much in the 50s, and also seemed to be moving around a lot just prior to her death, then I wonder if she really ever settled anywhere.
On the other hand, Jewish DNA does usually show up in analysis (my DNA says I'm 0.1% Ashkenazi Jewish!) and I wonder if that would have been mentioned by the police if they'd found that? All I've seen about the DNA analysis was 'she was European, with European parents'. That's not very specific. A Dutch person, for example, has very different DNA to that of a British person. Perhaps the DNA was too eroded to be any more specific.
I'm a lurker here but this case is just so intriguing and I thought I'd give my two cents :blushing: everything is MOO.

 

[dotr]

I wondered that, too. During WW2 a lot of Jewish kids were evacuated to the UK, and particularly to the countryside. The map indicates she spent a lot of time in Wales, and also further into France - or is that more like Switzerland? I can see that happening. You're a young Jewish woman/girl, you see Hitler coming into power and later invading Poland, so you move into France or Switzerland, and then on to the UK when France gets invaded. There's some Spanish activity too, and Spain was for the most part neutral. The Italian and Balkan activity is interesting too... to me it seems that probably occurred after the war. If she was a spy, maybe that's when she was recruited. What other jobs would require a young woman to move around so much? If she was moving around that much in the 50s, and also seemed to be moving around a lot just prior to her death, then I wonder if she really ever settled anywhere.
On the other hand, Jewish DNA does usually show up in analysis (my DNA says I'm 0.1% Ashkenazi Jewish!) and I wonder if that would have been mentioned by the police if they'd found that? All I've seen about the DNA analysis was 'she was European, with European parents'. That's not very specific. A Dutch person, for example, has very different DNA to that of a British person. Perhaps the DNA was too eroded to be any more specific.
I'm a lurker here but this case is just so intriguing and I thought I'd give my two cents :blushing: everything is MOO.

Welcome to Ws MarziPanda, glad you decided to post!

 

[MelmothTheLost]

I wondered that, too. During WW2 a lot of Jewish kids were evacuated to the UK, and particularly to the countryside. The map indicates she spent a lot of time in Wales, and also further into France - or is that more like Switzerland? I can see that happening. You're a young Jewish woman/girl, you see Hitler coming into power and later invading Poland, so you move into France or Switzerland, and then on to the UK when France gets invaded. There's some Spanish activity too, and Spain was for the most part neutral. The Italian and Balkan activity is interesting too... to me it seems that probably occurred after the war. If she was a spy, maybe that's when she was recruited. What other jobs would require a young woman to move around so much? If she was moving around that much in the 50s, and also seemed to be moving around a lot just prior to her death, then I wonder if she really ever settled anywhere.

I don't think the suggestion is that she travelled to all of the indicated places, just that those places are those which could match the isotope profile and therefore where she could have grown up. Looking at the map, I would guess that her early childhood was spent in the upper Rhine valley, maybe even northern Switzerland, and her teenage years slightly to the north around the area of Luxembourg (the BBC article mentions the French/German border area). If so, could have learned to speak French and German in childhood and Flemish/Dutch as a teenager.

I agree that since she was almost certainly born sometime during the 1930s it's highly likely her family would have moved during her childhood so her teenage years could well have been spent somewhere different from her younger childhood, but that doesn't have to mean moving half way across the continent.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

The maps shown are rather crude and distorted. I'd really like to see the probability schema overlaid onto a proper map showing international boundaries to get a more accurate feel of where she moved from and to.

The other possibility which jumps out at me is that the small early childhood patch in central Europe could be the Sudetenland, that part of what had been Germany which became part of the new Czechoslovakia at the end of WWI and which Hitler invaded in 1938 to return it to Germany as most of the people in the region were ethnic Germans. Following from that, the teenage hotspot in the region of Luxembourg could be the area around Stuttgart and Frankfurt or (less likely - maybe too far north) industrial region around Dusseldorf and Essen.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

More on the isotope results, this time with the maps much clearer and showing the modern international frontiers.

https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/chemi...-woman-point-to-germany-and-france-1.13523415

Having compared these clearer maps with Google maps, this suggests that her early childhood was most likely lived in the Nuremburg area, or less likely in the Rhine valley between France and Germany; and that her teenage years were spent slightly east of Luxembourg in the the area north and south of Saarbrucken, again across the French-German border but possibly more towards the south of that area in France (which would be supported by the analysis of her handwriting).

According to another article on the NRK website she spoke English very poorly, which would strongly suggest she did not have any connection with Wales!

 

[ZaZara]

Anyone wanting to search for persons / children missing in the Saarbrucken regio during or after the war, may start with the German Red Cross:

https://www.drk-suchdienst.de/en/services/second-world-war/archives/central-names-file

The central names file is the largest investigation file in Germany. It contains tracing requests and reports on all the groups affected for whom the GRC Tracing Service has begun investigations:

Missing soldiers and civilians,
Single children
Captives from the Soviet occupied zone/GDR

Alongside millions of search requests from private individuals, relatives and public bodies, the CNF has incorporated over the years a series of special files, for example:

Children’s index (names and features cards of unaccompanied minor children)
POW and missing persons’ registry from 1950
Total collection of the losses due to expulsion from 1955 to 1959 (ca. 124,000 index cards)
Central index of internees (ca.1,200 index cards including custody cases from the Tracing Service Hamburg Office)
Index cards of the “Combat Group against Inhumanity” (ca. 900,000 index cards including custody cases from the NKVD camp Soviet occupied zone/GDR, cases of arrest in the GDR)
Index cards from the comparison with the WASt (German agency which maintains records of members of the former German Wehrmacht), authorities, courts and other local supply authorities (returnee registration cards)
Index cards from the Danish Refugee Council in Denmark (around 200,000 cards) regarding flight across the Baltic Sea, arrival and internment in Denmark (ca. 200,000 cards)


IMHO the search would probably be easier had she originated from Wales!

 

[Irish_Eyes]

Definitely looks like Luxembourg and Western UK are real possibilities

 

[MelmothTheLost]

Definitely looks like Luxembourg and Western UK are real possibilities

I think they regard Wales as unlikely because of other evidence, not least the fact that her handwriting is very French in style and her English was [very] poor.

 

[fred&edna]

OT (but kinda'/sorta' related)

'Saw this case regarding Jennifer Frigate on reddit

On 3 June 1995, a young woman is found dead on the bed in Room 2805 of the Oslo Plaza, shot through the forehead with a Browning 9 mm pistol. She checked in as Jennifer Fergate, but the name is false. Who is this stylish woman? Why are the labels removed from her clothes? Why is she carrying 34 rounds of ammunition?

http://www.vg.no/spesial/2017/plaza-english/

http://pluss.vg.no/2017/06/08/2826/2826_24019177

 

[chinacat67]

OT (but kinda'/sorta' related)

'Saw this case regarding Jennifer Frigate on reddit

On 3 June 1995, a young woman is found dead on the bed in Room 2805 of the Oslo Plaza, shot through the forehead with a Browning 9 mm pistol. She checked in as Jennifer Fergate, but the name is false. Who is this stylish woman? Why are the labels removed from her clothes? Why is she carrying 34 rounds of ammunition?

http://www.vg.no/spesial/2017/plaza-english/

http://pluss.vg.no/2017/06/08/2826/2826_24019177

This is fascinating as well... perhaps Jennifer should have her own thread....

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[MelmothTheLost]

The NRK website about this case now also has a French translation of the basic article previously translated into English and German.

https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/le-mystere-de-l_inconnue-d_isdal-1.13557120

 

[Triss]

Cayleigh Elise's video on the Isdal Woman:
[video=youtube;5yuWdYx5_A8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yuWdYx5_A8[/video]

 

[fred&edna]

I believe there's updated info at NRK (Jan 8 2018)... it isn't available in English as yet, but I ran a few snippets through google translate:

"We conclude that she was born in 1930, plus minus four years, says Alkass to NRK. This means that the Isdal woman was somewhere between 36 and 44 years old when she died. It is significantly older than one has thought for now"


"A witness claimed to have seen her during a trial shootout with the Norwegian Navy Penguin, which was under development in 1970."
**(My understanding is this was related to missile testing NOT an actual "shootout" )

"A senior Norwegian officer who worked in NATO believed he had seen the Isdal friend in the restaurant at the NATO headquarters in Brussels a few years before she was found dead in Bergen"

**There's more but might be best to wait for an "official" translation.

https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/isdalskvinnen-eldre-enn-man-har-trodd-1.13822049

 

[MelmothTheLost]

I believe there's updated info at NRK (Jan 8 2018)... it isn't available in English as yet, but I ran a few snippets through google translate:

"We conclude that she was born in 1930, plus minus four years, says Alkass to NRK. This means that the Isdal woman was somewhere between 36 and 44 years old when she died. It is significantly older than one has thought for now"

Yet the original estimation, quoted in that article, was:

Ca. 25–40 år

Ie, about 25-40 years [old] so deciding she could have been around 40 isn't really new. From the original sketch I'd assumed her age to be between 35 and 40, which is why I think the more recent ones, which make her look 30, maybe younger, are a step backwards. She struck people she met in Norway as being sophisticated, which not a term one would have used of a young woman - especially in those days.

If the 1930 +/- 4 years is correct then she could have been born as early as 1926 which would make her 44 or 45 at the time of her death. The extensive dental work she had had done would also support a more mature age (35-45) than the much younger sketches recently created would indicate.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

Some new information on why the boffins are certain she was born before 1944.

They've carried out new C14 tests on her wisdom teeth and established that there are none of the signature traces of nuclear explosions, so she had to have been born before the first atomic explosion.

https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/isdalskvinnen-eldre-enn-man-har-trodd-1.13822049


Google translate of part of the above:

Carbon analysis is a well-known method for determining age. But the new carbon 14 variant is also linked to the blasts of atomic bombs, which greatly increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

Between 1955 and 1963, nearly 2000 atomic bombs were detonated in the open air in the world. In 1963 the nuclear powers signed an agreement that made these explosions illegal. Since then it has only been allowed to detonate nuclear weapons underground.

Carbon in the air settles in the enamel of the teeth when they are formed, and once the teeth are formed, they do not absorb more carbon, says researcher Kanar Alkass at the Swedish Mediocre Agency at Karolinska institutet. She has conducted the analysis of the Isdal woman's teeth.

Those whose teeth were formed after the trials started from 1955 carry an additional "year signature" in the dental enamel. This signature can be read today and compared to the curve of the carbon level in the air during the years during and after the bursts.

These are the signatures she has looked for in the wisdom teeth. And she found no higher values ​​there.

- There was no trace of the test blasts. So I can say 100 percent confidence that she was born before 1944, says Alkass.

Obviously this reinforces the pathology findings reported last month, that she was probably born in 1930 +/- 4 years.

 

[wdmcmahan]

There was an approximate 6 month break in her movements from early April (Brussels)* to late October (Stavanger)* and I've always been curious as to why no one was able to determine her whereabouts (under any of the aliases) during this time. Was there information and/or speculation that I might have missed??

Police find the woman had stayed in the following hotels, under these names:

Genevieve Lancier, from Louvain, stayed in Viking Hotel, Oslo from 21-24 March 1970
Claudia Tielt, from Brussels, stayed in Hotel Bristol, Bergen from 24-25 March
Claudia Tielt, from Brussels, stayed in Hotel Skandia, Bergen from 25 March to 1 April*
Claudia Nielsen, from Ghent, stayed in KNA-Hotellet, Stavanger from 29 -30 October*
Alexia Zarne-Merchez, from Ljubljana, stayed in Neptun Hotel, Bergen from 30 October to 5 November
Vera Jarle, from Antwerp, stayed in Hotel Bristol, Trondheim, from 6-8 November
Fenella Lorch, stayed in St Svithun Hotel, Stavanger from 9 to 18 November
Ms Leenhouwfr, stayed in Hotel Rosenkrantz, Bergen from 18 - 19 November
Elisabeth Leenhouwfr, from Ostend, stayed in Hotel Hordaheimen, Bergen from 19-23 November

Could she have been concealing a pregnancy during that 6 month time period?

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[MelmothTheLost]

Could she have been concealing a pregnancy during that 6 month time period?

It's an interesting idea, and would cover the period during which a pregnancy would show and immediately after the birth. The autopsy results provided make no mention of her having given birth but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. In fact there are almost 7 months during which she was not checking into and out of Norwegian hotels.

I think what we'd need is to look at where she was during that period, whether she was travelling elsewhere or staying in one place. Comparing the use of all of her fake passports should provide an answer to that unless there were other passports we don't know about. These were the days when passports were stamped at frontiers even in the original core of the EEC (now the EU), ie France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and Italy.

 

[ZaZara]

It's an interesting idea, and would cover the period during which a pregnancy would show and immediately after the birth. The autopsy results provided make no mention of her having given birth but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. In fact there are almost 7 months during which she was not checking into and out of Norwegian hotels.

I think what we'd need is to look at where she was during that period, whether she was travelling elsewhere or staying in one place. Comparing the use of all of her fake passports should provide an answer to that unless there were other passports we don't know about. These were the days when passports were stamped at frontiers even in the original core of the EEC (now the EU), ie France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and Italy.

BBM


Not quite. Even in 1970 it had already been possible for years for individuals to officially cross the borders between Belgium, Luxembourg an the Netherlands without any border control. It was also possible to cross the frontier unseen after office hours or on small roads with no border control to and from (Western) Germany and France.

Planes and trains were a different matter of course, you could hardly escape passport control there.

 

[fred&edna]

'Just thought I'd post this. (Of note, I had to have patience through some of the... uhmm... "extraneous talking" between these two guys) 'Did the "cassette tape" really exist??

https://www.buzzfeed.com/christophe...-of-the-most?utm_term=.al8Ybn56RY#.xaeLNPWxwL