Gjertrud Fitje (Chinese: 魏德心, born November 29 1907 in Gloppen, died in 2010 at Sandane) was a Norwegian nurse and an Evangelical Lutheran Church missionary to China affiliated with the Norwegian Missionary Society.
Her uncle, Jon Fitje was a missionary priest in China from 1909 to 1929. Fitje grew up in a time of abundant Christian life and a strong commitment to missionary work. After some years as a nurse at Haukeland hospital from 1921 to the mid 1930s, she attended Bible college and took a six-month language course in England. On 16 June 1937, she was consecrated as a missionary and in August the same year she went to China.
She worked as a nurse and missionary in the province of Hunan for 26 years and in 1949 fled to Taiwan, where she continued her missionary work. She arrived at Keelung 16 October 1950, and joined her colleague Helga Waabenø in the work of a large mission hospital in Taipei, which is now known as the Mackay Memorial Hospital, where the Norwegian Mission Alliance had seconded the Norwegian doctor Christopher Fotland. In March 1952 she moved to Keelung, where she worked as the sole representative from the Norwegian Mission Alliance until Henrikke Tangeraas came in late November.
Fitje had been behind the Iron Curtain for a while, and had seen how the Communists took power. At a Norwegian Mission Christmas gathering, she gave this description of what it was like to come to Taiwan:
| “ | ... But it's the rest of free China meeting here. It was nice to see the old flag which folded out into the autumn wind. The language has probably a great affinity with that on mainland language, but it is a different dialect and your speech is sometimes difficult to be understood by the people. Many chinese are homeless and wish to return back to their hometowns...[1] | ” |
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The "old flag" she referred to, was the Nationalist Chinese flag that was previously in use on China's mainland, and the phrasethe free-China refers to Taiwan. The term was also used by Chiang Kai-shek and his government.
Fitje died aged 102 years old at Sandane in Gloppen.
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