From Dagens Nyheter, Swedish newspaper, 29th December 2001:
Stina Fernström has been so far in the Teachers Group that you can come. She got the number 33. Stina was there when sect members sterilised themselves when Amdi didn’t want to pay contraceptives. The argument was that it was egoistic to have children and it would not been allowed. She was there when Amdi Petersen went further and forbade members to have sexual relations. The relationship between comrades within the Teachers Group must be the strongest.
All women cut their hair short and got defeminized.
When Stina Fernström finally broke up from Tvind it was with a heavy step. She was broken down, without self confidence and could neither laugh nor cry. She didn’t feel worthy enough to be with, she was not good enough, felt sorry for Amdi Petersen who had to meet her in the corridors. She went home to celebrate Christmas and didn’t return.
At the same time she knew that they wouldn’t let her go that easily. She had been bookkeeper of Amdi Petersen during nine years. She was there when the Teachers Group made their first million to Amdi Petersen. Stina knew every single payment the sect had made. She had all comrades’ names memorised in her head as it was not allowed to write them down.
That Christmas she sat in her mother’s home and knew that within two hours there would be somebody from the sect knocking on the door.
Stina went under ground.
Stina Fernström became member of the Teachers Group in the beginning of the 70’s. Amdi Petersen forbade the members of the sect to read newspapers and to watch TV, while he at the same time built up a strong picture of a threatening outside which mended the group together.
- Afterwards I have understood some of the oppressing mechanisms. We got almost never enough sleep, which is an efficient way of keeping us under control. Then it was the fact that we never were doing good enough. I was in a situation where I had to always act and he made sure that what ever I did it was the wrong thing. Then one shrinks, says Stina.
The Teachers Group held big meetings where there should be “real democracy”, everybody should be agreeing, or the meetings were not supposed to have a break. Amdi Petersen did, with his charisma and with his verbal ability, get along well. He came with creative proposals that were applauded for long while and then accepted. Once, when somebody had disagreed with Amdi Petersen, it took three days and nights before Amdi got his point through, Stina is telling.
The meetings could appear as a lengthy mobbing sessions. They were each other’s siblings, Amdi Petersen taught the members, that what they had, was the only true love. All others in the society were living on surrogates. At the same time they were each other’s enemies; controlling and criticising one another on the meetings as they otherwise risked to get criticised themselves.
In the teachers group anybody could get what ever task. Somebody could get the responsibility to build a school.
- If you didn’t succeed as the task was too big, you anyway had to carry the responsibility, you could not point on the one who came out with the proposal in the first place, Amdi. To get criticism for something that you have tried your best for but had no possibility to manage, that is psychological torture.
After some time it seemed like Amdi Petersen got more and more paranoid. He held armed guards, came home and left mostly at nights, encouraged the members of TG to burn their letters, photo albums and other private things. The Teachers Group was tapped, when you talked about Amdi one should say “The others”. “There are traitors and spies among us”, said Amdi.
It went so far, that mail was checked through, because Amdi Petersen had explained that there could come bombs in letters. And so was the decision made to kill infiltrators.
- We were in one of the big meetings, 100-150 well bred Danes and Swedes with middle class background, and we unified decided that we would be able to kill the one among us who was a traitor! Only one person left the room before the decision was made, and that was because she was a nurse and had sworn an oath to always protect lives.
- Yes, I think I would have been able to kill then, says Stina Fernström today.
One day Stina understood that some members of the sect were more important than others.
- One could enter a room and understand that they were talking about something we didn’t know about. It was very painful to realise, as we all should be equally important and this included to get the same information.
But what Amdi Petersen had done, was that he had built up a structure with cells where nobody knew about more than his own group. Some could sit in more than one cell. Some nights different groups sat down in their cars and went for secret meetings. In the morning they were back, and pretended as nothing had happened.
- One became an expert in being double and in keeping a good face, to pretend as one understood what the discussions were about, Stina explains.
Stina knew that it was difficult to leave the sect, to break the psychological ties. It took two years from that Christmas when she broke up until she dared to go to town. She had been living at an old friends’ from the times she was into theatre, before the sect. Nobody knew that she was there, not even Stina’s mother. Still the sect had phoned to the friend and asked for Stina.
One day at Åhléns (a department store), she bumped into one of her old comrades who still today is in the Teachers Group.
- Stina!
They greeted.
- Stina, shouldn’t we go and call The others?
Like a sleepwalker Stina followed Marja to the telephone cabin. Marja looked for coins to be able to phone to Amdi Petersen. Didn’t find any.
- Could you wait here and I will go and change, she said.
Then the powerlessness was broken. Stina put her hand on Marja’s arm.
- Marja, it is no use calling. I won’t follow you back. I have to go now.
