Norwegian castrati

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I always thought there was something different about Uncle Olaus

PHONEY CAJONES

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MORE THAN 400 PEOPLE CASTRATED IN CRIME PURGE

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway castrated 414 people from 1934 to 1969 as part of a crackdown on rapists and others including mental patients, homosexuals and epileptics, a historian says.

"Castration was to prevent sexual crimes, but it quickly took on a much broader scope", Per Haave, who has had access to Norwegian health archives, told NRK public radio on Thursday.

He said 370 men and 44 women were victims of a policy which peaked in the late 1940s. More than 100 people were castrated from 1948-50 alone.

Castration "was perhaps used most of all on psychiatric patients, on those in mental institutions and in homes for young criminals", Haave said. "Among the men ... there were many homosexuals".

Neighboring Sweden revealed in 1997 that it had sterilized about 63,000 people between 1935 and 1975, many against their will, as part of a campaign to improve racial purity in the Nordic nation.

Norway, whose population is now 4.5 million, has also been accused of carrying out forced sterilizations, although on a lesser scale than in Sweden and stopping short of castration.

Haave said that many of the victims were aged under 20. The men had their testicles cut off, the women had their ovaries removed.

Health authorities justified the operation on one 15-year-old girl, for instance, by writing that she was "strongly erotically inclined".

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 09, 2000

Answers

Let's see, Mr. Johanssen, this is the third time we've pulled you over for speeding.....

-- I'm Here, I'm There, (I'm Everywhere,@So.Beware), December 10, 2000.

I'm still having a hard time thinking of Lars as being Norwegian.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), December 10, 2000.

Anita--

Uffda! What can I do to convince you?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 10, 2000.


Hmmm. At first glance of the topic I thought this dealt with Norwegian castrati singers.

The Italians were famous for those *alterations*.

Cough now.

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), December 10, 2000.


Lars:

Uffda!

I've HEARD that Norwegian-Americans used this expression, but mine never did, nor did their brothers or sisters nor the family I've visited in Norway, nor any of the other folks I've visited in Norway.

You don't have to prove anything. You can be whoever you want to be. This IS the internet, ya know.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), December 10, 2000.



Anita--

uffda is more common in Wisconsin and Minnesota than in Chicago. I never heard my mom's folks in Chicago use it but I encountered it often in Madison, WI. I have never been to Norway. I was afraid of being castrated. Uffda!

My mom was born of Norwegian immigrants. She was raised in the then Norwegian neighbor of Humboldt Park, Chicago. My dad's father was born in Manchester, England so my last name is Anglo. Dad was also born in Chicago and raised in Beverly Hills at 95th and Western.

UFFDA

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 10, 2000.


He said 370 men and 44 women were victims of a policy which peaked in the late 1940s.

44 women?

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), December 10, 2000.


Female castration = removal of ovaries. Male and female castration might have been considered a "progressive" thing to do in progressive places like Sweden and Norway in those years (1934-1969). I'll bet they were big into frontal lobotomies too.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 10, 2000.

I had a feeling that's what it was, it just seems funny to hear it referred to in that way. I'd be curious to know what the crimes were of those women; my guess is they were considered too "loose" sexually..

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), December 10, 2000.

Or they may have been retarded (DDs, to be politically correct).

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), December 10, 2000.


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