Frida Lyngstad - Early Life

Early Life

Anni-Frid Synni "Frida" Lyngstad was born in Bjørkåsen, a small village in Ballangen near Narvik, in northern Norway, to a young Norwegian girl and a German soldier, Alfred Haase (1919 - January 2009), just after the end of the Second World War and the German occupation of Norway. Lyngstad's father returned to Germany when his troops were evacuated.

In early 1947, Lyngstad, her mother, and her maternal grandmother, Arntine Lyngstad ("Agny"), left her birthplace, fearing reprisals against those who had dealings with the Germans during the occupation. This could entail not just insults, but also forced separation of infants from their parents and relatives (see War children).

Lyngstad was taken by her grandmother across the border to Sweden, where they settled in the region of Härjedalen and her grandmother took any job she could find. Her mother stayed behind in Norway and worked for a period in the south of the country but soon joined her mother and daughter in Sweden, and the three moved to a town named Malmköping (45 miles from Stockholm). Shortly thereafter, her mother died of kidney failure, aged 21. Lyngstad was raised solely by her grandmother. In June 1949, they both relocated to the town of Torshälla (just outside of Eskilstuna), where Agny Lyngstad soon found work as a seamstress. Frida Lyngstad grew up in Torshälla and began attending school there in August 1952. Close contact with her family in Norway (notably her uncle and four aunts) continued, and Lyngstad recalls with warmth summer holidays spent with them at her birthplace. She was especially close to an aunt named Olive, who once stated that she saw how lonely and subdued Frida was and, as a result, always did her best to make her feel loved and welcomed during visits.

Lyngstad believed that her father, Alfred Haase, had died during the war on his way back to Germany as his ship was reported to have sunk. However, in 1977, the German teen magazine Bravo published a poster and a complete biography with details of Lyngstad's background, including the names of her father and mother. It was seen by Lyngstad's half-brother, Peter Haase, who went to his father and asked him if he had been in Ballangen during the war. A few months later, Lyngstad met Haase in Stockholm for the first time.