The Oslo Jewish Museum, located in a former synagogue, presents the history of Jews in Norway.
History
Norway gained its independence from Denmark in 1814. The Evangelical Lutheran state's constitution expressly denied Jews settlement rights. This paragraph was only invalidated in 1851, mostly thanks to the efforts by poet Henrik Wergeland (1808-1845). The number of Jews in Norway remained low, only between 1880 and 1920 did the Jewish population rise from about 50 to over 1,300. During that time, many Jewish associations and prayer houses came into being, among them the synagogue in »Calmeyers gate« street, which today houses the museum. When the German Wehrmacht occupied Norway in April 1940, there were over 1,300 Norwegian Jews and up to 600 Jewish refugees from other European countries living in Norway. Beginning June 1941, the German occupying forces under Reichkommissar Josef Terboven (1898–1945), and Norwegian nationalists radicalised the exclusion of Jews. After their wealth had been confiscated for the most part, all Jews in Norway were arrested in October 1942. In all, around 765 Jews from Norway were murdered until 1945, over 40 per cent of the country's Jewish population. The synagogue in »Calmeyers gate« was closed down in 1942 by the Quisling government. Of the 28 Jews who lived in the residential building opposite the synagogue, 19 were deported and murdered.
Victims
Approximately 765 Jews from Norway were murdered during the Holocaust.
In April 1940 the German Wehrmacht occupied the Kingdom of Norway following weeks of fighting. At the time, over 1,300 Norwegian Jews and around 600 Jewish refugees were living in the country, mainly in Oslo and Trondheim. The majority of the Norwegians were opposed to the Germans. Prior to the German invasion public support was also lacking for the anti-Jewish stance of the Norwegian party »Nasjonal Samling« (National Unity), founded in 1933 and led by Vidkun Quisling (1887–1945). From June 1941, the German occupying forces and Quisling’s nationalists pursued an increasingly radical policy of excluding the Jews and persecuting opponents of the regime. In February 1942, a collaboration government was established with Quisling as Prime Minister. This government, which was under the control of the German Reich Commissar Josef Terboven (1898–1945), further stepped up the terror measures, especially against Jews. All of the Jews in Norway were arrested in October 1942. At the end of November 1942 and the end of February 1943 the SS deported 690 of these Jewish men, women and children by boat to Stettin in Pomerania (now Poland). From here they were deported to Auschwitz, either directly or via Berlin. At least 765 Jews from Norway became victims of the mass murder, over forty percent of the Jewish population of the country.
A number of resistance groups were formed in Norway, which practised civil disobedience and carried out acts of sabotage. Arrested members of the resistance were deported to the concentration camps at Natzweiler-Struthof, Neuengamme and Sachsenhausen. Many villages and industrial plants in the north of the country were razed to the ground during the Wehrmacht’s withdrawal from Norway in spring 1945. Quisling was arrested on 8 May 1945 and executed in the Akershus fortress in Oslo on 24 October 1945. In many languages the name Quisling stands for collaboration and treachery. Around 45,000 Norwegians had joined his party by 1945. Norway’s national Resistance Museum was opened in Akershus in 1970 along with a monument for the Norwegian patriots shot at the fortress during the Second World War. A number of Holocaust memorials have been established in Trondheim and Oslo since the 1990s. The Centre for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities was founded in 2005 in Quisling’s former offices (»Villa Grande«) in Oslo. The Norwegian royal family headed by King Haakon VII (1872–1957) became a symbol of the Norwegian resistance and post-war democracy. The king and crown prince both refused to capitulate and went into exile in Britain. A »Peace Grove« was opened in 1997 near a birch tree where they had sought refuge in April 1940. The aim is to encourage people to engage in the »continuing struggle for freedom, peace and human dignity both today and in the future«. Many Norwegian sites of memory are oriented to the present and future and focus on education in peace and human rights. Since the 1980s, a critical confrontation with collaboration and everyday life under the German occupation has also been a feature of the Norwegian culture of memory.
Remembrance
After the war, the synagogue building in »Calmeyers gate« street was no longer a house of worship but instead used, amongst others, as a factory and a Kurdish cultural centre. In 2000, the construction of a Jewish museum was begun by a working group in cooperation with the Oslo City Museum. In 2005, the museum moved into a floor of the former synagogue building. In September 2008, an exhibition entitled »Friheten vinnes ikke bare én gang...« (English: »Freedom is never won once and for all...«) was opened. It focuses on the contribution Jews have made to Norwegian art and culture as well as Jewish resistance against the occupation regime during the Second World War. The opening of a permanent exhibition is planned for 2010.
Possibilities
Exhibition, lecture series, publications
Open
Tuesday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Thursday 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
From June 15 to August 15 additionally also open on Wednesday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Friday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
