Caroline Nicolaysen, known as Nic, studied medicine and was active in socialist and communist groups. In 1931 she came to Berlin to train as a psychoanalyst. During this stay, she met the Jewish woman Nina Hackel (later Hasvoll), and used her contacts to enable her to enter Norway.
In 1937 Nic married the engineer Wessel Waal. When Nina Hasvoll took on the management of a Jewish children’s home in Oslo in 1938, Nic Waal took care of the children’s medical needs. As a doctor, she was allowed to drive a car even during air-raid alerts and had access to gas, which was rationed.
In the night of November 25, 1942, the children had to leave the building due to an impending raid. Nic Waal drove them in small groups, hidden under a blanket, to her friend Gerda Tanberg’s house. She then helped to take the children to Sweden.
Nic Waal was arrested for other resistance activities in 1943 and imprisoned in Grini police detention camp from October 1943 to May 1944. After her release she went underground.
In 1945 she emigrated first to Sweden and then to the United States.