The Gullspang Miracle BBC4

[JaneJeffer]

Did anyone watch? What the hell was that all about?

Yes, I watched this!

It was very very odd indeed.
It seemed to go from delighted family to implosion very very quickly - with no actual conclusion at all!

It would have made a great drama if someone wrote an ending that made it make sense!

Just watched this and was enthralled but disappointed at the end with the lack of answers to the numerous question i had. I even tried to find norwegian forums talking about it but there is very little ou there

Yes, I went on Reddit, but the most substantial discussions weren’t in languages I could read. I wasn’t planning to watch it, I was actually on my way to bed, but I got gripped and as I’m not in the UK, I don’t have access to the iplayer, and couldn’t record, I had to keep watching.

I suppose it comes down in part to which DNA test we believe? Some people online were speculating that the first test that tested Olaug against Kari and May was falsified or just not sent off at all because whoever should have done so wanted at that point to believe Olaug was Lita’s twin. By the time the second test was done, here’s footage of blood being drawn from Olaug, and Trine, Kari, May and Olaug all waiting together at the clinic, plus we see them reading the results together — and this time Lita’s daughter is also tested. And Olaug now doesn’t want to be biologically connected to this family any longer. She thinks they’re stupid, and credulous. And they’ve gone off her too.

I think someone online said that Olaug said in an interview that Kari and May handled the testing first time around (because someone was suggesting Olaug was more likely to have falsified or misreported the results), but it’s not clear.

I assume people attuned to Swedish society would have been more able to spot the class and educational differences between Olaug and Kari, May and their siblings that seem to have gone so sour. They were less clear to me. What struck me strongly was how relieved the family were to have the ‘sin’ of suicide taken away.

And then there’s the issue of how Lita really died, but the film maker said she couldn’t pursue that further against the family’s wishes. But yes, lots of tantalising questions? Why didn’t the police question the man who found her body, and why so uninquisitive? Why had the family believed she died of a drug overdose when the autopsy said otherwise? Who started that story? Who took out three different life insurances, and was the dodgy-looking ex the one who would have benefited? Would suicide have negated the claim? Why the different hair colours when she was waiting in the car by the lake — wigs or different women? Why the roses and strawberries?

Honestly, though, in some ways my most pressing unanswered question was why May, who presumably already had a home, decided to buy an apartment while visiting her sister after she broke her coccyx on the theme park ride? And what was the obsession with a fruit painting? And was Nazi experimentation on twins just a ‘respectable’ excuse for getting rid of one twin?

I thought Olaug had a very similar personality to the sister who said she wouldn't pray for her!

How creepy is this photo though?

And was Nazi experimentation on twins just a ‘respectable’ excuse for getting rid of one twin?
I don't think so @InheritedClock. The Nazis did such disgusting things. The Norwegian people must have been living in terror.

Yes they did, but it could have been an excuse in some cases.

Yup, buying the flat was really odd. She couldn't travel home for weeks, so bought a flat. Then there was just a throwaway comment later about how upset she was at splitting up from her husband.

And the point of the painting was never explained at all. It began as if that was a crucial part of the story, but didn't seem to go anywhere. Did they see the painting and saw it as a sign that they should buy that specific flat, hence meeting Olaug?

Yes, I’m not disputing for a moment that Nazi medics like Mengele did horrific ‘research’ on twins, but I thought that was generally in concentration camps (while forced sterilisations, murders of the ‘ unfit’ etc happened in the general population) — would the twin eugenic experiments even have been known about in rural Norway during the Nazi occupation? Was it the male cousin whose name I can’t remember, the one with the laptop, who started this idea that the supposedly ‘stillborn’ twin had been given away to keep both babies safe? Is it significant Olaug was adopted/fostered in neutral Sweden? I noticed there was no concentration at all on the family she’d grown up in, but perhaps that’s because anyone who might have known anything was long dead?

That Lita photo is terrifying.

I found this incredibly confusing, the way the story was told, and ultimately quite a frustrating watch because of that.

The Nazis' did experiment on twins not only in concentration camps, also in Norway women we used to procreate the aryan race. I met a British young man who said he was one of 5 boys born to a Norwegian mother who married a British man. However, his wife corrected him and said you are one of 6 brothers. Yes, he was not happy with that quote. But apparently, his mother had a son with a Nazi on a baby farm in Norway. This person grew up to be shunned, by Norwegians and their own family members. So lots of things went on in Norway at the time of their occupation by the Nazis.

Are you suggesting that the Lebensborn programme in Norway might explain some of the mystery of Olaug’s origins? Wiki suggests that Lebensborn activities in occupied Norway focused on babies born to Norwegian women and fathered by German soldiers, and that the numbers could be as high as 12,000 children. Only some were adopted by SS families in Germany.

It’s hard to see exactly how that fits with Olaug’s story, but maybe the ‘hide twins from the Nazis by selflessly giving one away’ story is a cover for a less palatable story of collaboration and a child born to an occupying German soldier? There was discrimination and reprisals against those children after the war, I know. Annifrid in ABBA was one of them, and was taken to Sweden to live as a baby by her mother and grandmother. Maybe that’s why Olaug grew up in Sweden and was on a document as a foster child?

Yes I remember seeing that about Frida on an ABBA documentary @InheritedClock. It could be the case with Olaug too.

Didn't the first DNA test give the result that they were half siblings? That never seemed to be explained. Which was the common parent?

I think someone said at one point same father, different mothers? I think?

Lots of online debate seemed to focus on the different DNA results, pointing out that while the film crew follows Olaug, Trine, Kari and May to the clinic for the second test, and there’s footage of Olaug having blood taken, and footage of them opening an envelope and reading what looks like an official document saying Olaug is not Kari and May’s half-sister and is only 0.02% likely to be Trine’s aunt, there’s only a casual reference to the first test having stated Olaug was a half-sibling match with Kari and May — we don’t see any evidence a test took place, or of any documents with the result. People were speculating about whether a first test ever happened, or whether Kari/May or Olaug would be more likely to have misreported the result…

Thank you I must have missed that bit.

I thought it was a fascinating programme, almost had the feel of a Grimms fairy tale about it.

I think the final voice note between Olaug and the director about them possibly being related and should they get a DNA test was an indication they felt the first test was not straight forward. But it was slightly mocking of and unkind towards the sisters.

I thought that message either shows how mentally unstable (being polite) Olaug is or simply that she wants another documentary.

I feel the whole thing was a con from start the finish, all the evidence was very weak and wasn’t really explored further. Olaug’s documents made no sense, I mean, are we really meant to presume that despite a military career she never got a passport or needed that birth certificate for anything.

I agree with both these posts. 2 and 2 are not making 4. I assume Olaug did not have any children, did she marry? All of which may mean whyshe did not have empathy with the siblings' families.

And to add, on Olaug’s birth certificate the date in 1947 when it should say 1941. It’s easy to change a 1 to a 7 or it’s possible that she’s lying and that certificate is genuine, I cannot believe she’s gone through her whole life not looking at it and needing it for any ID. I believe the baptism certificate is someone else’s, hence why it has her name incorrect.

Right, why did she randomly buy an apartment while she lived in Norway?
Why didn't the police start a new investigation after this documentary?! Why was a third dna test not carried out? Why is there no update after all this time?!

But there was no sign of Olaug being mentally unstable before, was there?

I think it's a hoax/mockumentary. None of it made sense. "I've broken my arse-bone on a plastic whale so I'm going to buy a flat in a Swedish village" and from there it gets crazier. Half sisters with a different mother, but no mention of either mother by any of the siblings. Where did this woman go? Was the father running a sect/commune? What was up with the home video footage? Shot in 1988 so Lita would have been 47 but she looks 25 tops. The copper gets out an old death file and then sits in front of a net curtain to talk about it but is apparently completely incurious about the discrepancies in it. The woman witness talking about Lita sitting in her car next to a lake for two days, with roses and strawberries and changing hair colour - "people did that, back then" - no they didn't. People have never done that. And who's the dame in turn of the century dress in the photo? Where did she fit into it?

Maybe the sisters lied to the documentary maker and she was initially taken in, realised it wasn't true but had already invested in the project so just decided to film everything, cut most of it out and put together random snippets with no coherent narrative and some dramatic music in the hope that it would somehow work. Or maybe it's all completely fake.