Harry Rødner
The Betrayal is the author's first book publication, on a theme that he has grown up with and that has occupied him for many years.
Background
Harry Rødner (born 26th April, 1943 in Stockholm) grew up by Majorstuen in Oslo after the war. After high school and military service, he trained as a structural engineer at the technical college ETH in Zurich. He later completed his business education in Geneva.
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After his studies in Zurich, he was experiment manager at a building technology research institute affiliated with the college, before returning home to Norway and the oil industry in 1975. He held various positions in the Aker group and the Finnish company Fortum's Norwegian oil operations. In 2003 he retired, and has since worked as a tour guide part-time.
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Rødner's parents fled to Sweden in the beginning of the war. Both their, grandparents', uncles' and aunts' fates during the war shaped his upbringing. The family was - and is - active in Jewish community life, and Rødner uses the impressions from there in his descriptions of the events during the war. He also uses the correspondence between his parents - a hundred letters written from 1943 to 1945 - and the diaries of his mother from the same period as background stories in the book.
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Harry Rødner is married, has two children and five grandchildren. When the corona epidemic made him unemployed, it was his Swiss wife who encouraged him to write a book about the betrayal of the Jews by the exile government and King Haakon. The topic had occupied him for several years, and he has collected a lot of information about it. His career as a civil engineer and civil economist had ended. The jobs as guide and tour leader are returning. Now he enthusiastically starts a new profession: as a writer.
The Family Tree
​Of the author's four grandparents, one died before the war, two were murdered in the holocaust and one survived.
In the Rubinstein and Koklin families there were five siblings in each family = 10 siblings:
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Salomon Rubinstein emigrated before the war to South Africa
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two Rubinstein siblings participated in the battles in April 1940 (Gudbrandsdalen and Valdres)
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four Rubinstein siblings were imprisoned for their efforts on the Allied side
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three of the ten were murdered in the holocaust
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six fled to Sweden, two in November 1941, four in 1942
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three Rubinstein siblings went from Sweden to England to serve Norway there
The next generations:​
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three of the siblings had a total of five children, three of whom are living in 2022 in Sweden and Norway (two born before, one during and two after the war)
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the 10 have had six grandchildren, who live in South Africa, Israel, England and Norway in 2022
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and 10 great-grandchildren, who live in South Africa, Israel, England and Norway in 2022