People of all ages fled, and hid in caves and Sámi turf huts, or they concealed themselves under boats covered with turf and soil. 23,000 people – a third of the whole population in Finnmark – spent the winter from October 1944 to May 1945 in totally burnt-out or destroyed areas. Not everyone survived. In western
Finnmark, German patrols spent the winter looking for people. Several were caught. Many were sent to prison camps, like the infamous Krøkebærsletta in Tromsø.
At very short notice, over 50,000 people were forced on board small fishing vessels, or carted away on the backs of open dumper trucks and German ships. In Porsanger, 3300 Finnmark inhabitants were packed on board the Karl Arp and the Adolf Binder. They were called death ships. The cargo holds were dark and frightening. The miserable conditions caused infectious and deadly diseases to quickly spread.
The evacuees were only allowed to take with them what they could carry. Many did not have any clothes other than the ones on their back. Tens of thousands of dirty, exhausted and lice-ridden refugees were channelled through Tromsø, Narvik, Mosjøen and Trondheim. The capacity for beds, food, de-lousing and information had been exhausted. Some got separated along the way. Newspapers and notice boards were full of notices of people who were missing. Some are still searching for the grave of a great-grandmother or little brother who died on the journey, while the family had to travel on.
The Wehrmacht requisitioned houses and accommodated the forced evacuees all over the country. Families received their own relatives, and many others opened up both their homes and their hearts. For some, cultural differences and language barriers were considerable, and there was limited understanding of what the refugees had really been through.
The forced evacuation and burning are regarded as the biggest catastrophe in Norwegian history since the Black Death.