The Holocaust in Norway

Anti-Semite graffiti on shop windows in Oslo in 1941. (The location is at the junction of present-day Henrik Ibsen's Street and Crown Prince Street.) The address is called "Glitne-gården" by some.[1]

The German occupation of Norway began on 9 April 1940. In 1942, there were at least 2,173 Jews in Norway. At least 775 of them were arrested, detained and/or deported. More than half of the Norwegians who died in camps in Germany were Jews.[2] 742 Jews were murdered in the camps and 23 Jews died as a result of extrajudicial execution, murder and suicide during the war, bringing the total of Jewish Norwegian dead to at least 765, comprising 230 complete households.[3]

Many Jews survived by fleeing Norway, nearly two-thirds escaping.[4] Of these, around 900 Jews were smuggled out of the country by the Norwegian resistance movement, mostly to Sweden but some also to the United Kingdom.[5] Between 28 and 34 of those deported survived[6] their continued imprisonment in camps (following their deportation)—and around 25 (of these) returned to Norway after the war.[5] About 800 Norwegian Jews who had fled to Sweden returned after the war.

  1. ^ "Holocaust i Norge". Store Norske Leksikon (in Norwegian). Retrieved 6 June 2021.
  2. ^ Michelet, Marte (15 November 2014). "Bare en detalj". Dagbladet.no.
  3. ^ These numbers do not include Jewish Soviet or Polish prisoners of war that died in captivity as a result of murder or mistreatment in Norwegian camps, nor Allied Jewish soldiers killed in action in Norway. There is some evidence that prisoners of war who were found to be Jewish were singled out and were abused. Mendelsohn 1986.
  4. ^ Kronikk: Frontingen av «Den største forbrytelsen» gir en Holocaust-historie uten nyanser [Op-ed: To front the book The greatest crime, gives a history of the Holocaust—without nuances]
  5. ^ a b "Norway". encyclopedia.ushmm.org.
  6. ^ Ottosen, Kristian (1994). "Vedlegg 1". I slik en natt; historien om deportasjonen av jøder fra Norge (in Norwegian). Oslo: Aschehoug. pp. 334–360. ISBN 82-03-26049-7.