Aase-Grethe Holby

Aase Holby (nee Hall) was born in Oslo, Norway. In 1941 She graduated from Oslo Handels Gymnasium (Business School). Aase had dreamed of being a fashion designer, but with the Germans now occupying Norway, she went to work for the Norwegian Government-in-exile, serving in the Resistance.

She assisted in her Austrian-Jewish brother-in-law's escape from Norway and thereafter, posing as a young mother, she took Norwegian-Jewish children to safety over the border into neutral Sweden. While working for the Resistance in Trondheim in 1943, she was awoken in the middle of the night by the Germans and imprisoned in a concentration camp in Norway, where she spent the next 18 months of her life.

Released in 1944 to be followed, she escaped into Sweden and worked for the Norwegian Embassy in Stockholm. She was transferred in 1945 to England, celebrating VE-Day with the British, and then onto the Norwegian Embassy in New York. Aase was offered a job in the newly formed United Nations, which was then laying plans to move to New York, (the first Secretary-General was Norwegian) but opted instead for family and homemaking, marrying in 1947 and moving to Larchmont, NY.

Her husband Warren B. Holby was a founding partner of Merritt & Holby - a firm building post-war housing developments in Westchester County, later developing office parks and Rye Ridge Shopping Center - the first Shopping Center in the eastern United States.

While raising her family in Larchmont, Aase was active in many local organizations, including Planned Parenthood of Westchester, Larchmont Women's and The Newcomer's Clubs, was a Trustee of Larchmont Avenue Church and Chairman of Larchmont Assembly. Aase was active in all things Norwegian. She served as Chair of the American-Scandinavian Society-Social Comm, a director of Scandinavian Seminar and an active contributor at the Norwegian Seamen's Church.

Sources (and more reading):

• Issuu (Levanger historielag - Årbok 2006)
• The New York Times (Paid Notice: Deaths)