PREMIERSHIP: PM apologizes for Norway’s Role in deporting Jews during WW2

OSLO:Norway apologized for the first time on Friday for the country’s complicity inthe deportation and deaths of Jews during the Nazi occupation in World War Two. (See Related News)

“Norwegians carried out the arrests; Norwegians drove the trucks and it happened in Norway,” Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said. “Today I feel it isfitting to express our deepest apologies that this could happen on Norwegian soil.” “It is time for us to acknowledge that Norwegian policemen, civil servants and other Norwegians took part in the arrest and deportation of Jews,” he said in a speech marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Vidkun Quisling, the country’s leader during the occupation whose name has become synonymous with traitor, ordered Norway’s 2,100 Jews registered in 1942.More than a third were deported to death camps, while others fled to neighboring Sweden.

French President Jacques Chirac apologized in 1995 for his country’s complicity in the Holocaust.

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Norway’s Far Right Terrorist Attack Also Targeted Royalty

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Anders Behring Breivik demanded that Norway’s government resign and King Harald V abdicate before he would reveal more about his confessed bombing and shooting spree that killed 77 people, Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported. ( See Related Blog: Norway Killer Anders Behring Breivik demanded King Harald V’s Abdication)

‘Norway will remain open country’ (Al Jazeera, Jul 25, 2011 ) :

Al Jazeera’s Nick Spicer interviews Jens Stoltenberg, the prime minister of Norway, who personally knew many of the victims of Friday’s twin attacks.

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HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY Jan 27th, 2012

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Norway and the Holocaust :

Edmond J. Safra Hall, Museum of Jewish Heritage–April 14, 2010  Author Irene Levin Berman is interviewed by Museum curator Bonnie Gurewitsch about her memoir “We Are Going to Pick Potatoes: Norway and the Holocaust, the Untold Story” Levin recounts her family’s story of rescue. In 1942, four-year-old Irene Levin was one of 1,200 Norwegian Jews who escaped to Sweden.

King Haakon Restored on the Throne after WWII:

King Haakon father of King Olav (and grandfather of the current King Harald) arrives home after 5 years of exile in London during the 2nd world war. He arrived in Oslo with the rest of the Royal Family of Norway

Norway apologises for deporting Jews during Holocaust (bbc)

The Norwegian prime minister has apologised for the role his country played in deporting its own Jews as Europe marks Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“Norwegians carried out the arrests, Norwegians drove the trucks and it happened in Norway,” Jens Stoltenberg said in a speech.

It is believed to be the first time a Norwegian leader has been so explicit about collusion under Nazi occupation.

More than a third of Norway’s 2,100 Jews were deported to death camps.

Others fled to neighbouring Sweden, which remained neutral during World War II.

Norway acknowledged its role in the Holocaust in 1998 and paid some $60m (£38m) to Norwegian Jews and Jewish organisations in compensation for property seized.

However, the payout fell short of a full apology.

‘Time to acknowledge’

Mr Stoltenberg delivered his speech at the dock in the capital Oslo where 532 Jews boarded the cargo ship Donau on 26 November 1942, bound for Nazi camps.

“Today I feel it is fitting for me to express our deepest apologies that this could happen on Norwegian soil,” he said in the speech, translated into English on the prime minister’s website.

“It is time for us to acknowledge that Norwegian policemen, civil servants and other Norwegians took part in the arrest and deportation of Jews.”

He added that hewas sorry to see that the “ideas that led to the Holocaust [were] stillvery much alive today”.

“All over the world we see that individuals and groups are spreading intolerance and fear,” he said.

Paul Levine, a history professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, likened Norway’s role during the war to that of the Vichy regime in Nazi-occupied France.

“They implemented their own anti-Jewish laws, used their own manpower, confiscated property and discriminated against Jews before the Germans had demanded it,” he told Reuters news agency.

“Norway didn’t have to do what it did.”

The Holocaust, during which some six million Jews were murdered, is commemorated on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops.

In other news related to Holocaust Remembrance Day:

§ Austria’s Green Party leader, Eva Glavischnig, suggested attendees at a Vienna ball on Friday evening which traditionally attracts the far right would be “dancing on the graves of Auschwitz”

§ A public TV channel in Turkey began broadcasting the epic 1985 documentary Shoah – the first mainly Muslim state ever to do so – in what its director Claude Lanzmann, 87, called a “historic event”

§ Auschwitz survivor Kazimierz Smolen, 91, who went on to become director of the memorial at the site, died inthe neighbouring Polish town of Oswiecim

§ German parliamentary Norbert Lammert told a memorial ceremony in Berlin that he was concerned about lack ofawareness of the Nazi genocide among young people

§ Flowers were laid at the Sachsenhausen Nazi death campsite in Oranienburg, Germany, where some 10,000 Soviet prisoners-of-war were shot by the Nazis

About Vidkun Quisling :

Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling (18 July1887 – 24 October 1945) was a Norwegian politician. On 9 April 1940, with the German invasion of Norway in progress, he seized power in a Nazi-backed coup d’etat that garnered him international infamy. From 1942 to 1945 he served as Minister-President,working with the occupying forces.

Vidkun Quisling`s speech on April 9th 1940 :

Vidkun Quisling arrested by the allies 10th of Sept 1945:

His government, known as the Quisling regime, wasdominated by ministers from Nasjonal Samling,the party he had founded in 1933. The collaborationist government participated in Germany’s Final Solution. Quisling was put on trial during the post-war legal purge in Norway and found guilty of charges including embezzlement,murder and high treason.He was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress, Oslo,on 24 October 1945. During World War II, quislingbecame asynonym for traitor.

The son of a Church of Norway pastor,Quisling blended Christian fundamentals, scientific developments and philosophy into a new theory he called Universism.Before going into politics, he proved himself in the military, joining the General Staff in 1911 and specialising in Russian affairs. He was posted toRussia in 1918, and worked with Fridtj of Nansen during the1921 famine in the Ukraine,returning to Russia to work with Frederik Prytz in Moscow.When Prytz left in 1927, Quisling stayed on as the Norwegian diplomat responsible for managing British diplomatic affairs. For these services he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by King George V, though the honour was later rescinded. He returned to Norway in 1929, andserved as Minister ofDefence during the Agrarian governments(1931–33). Although Quisling achieved some popularity after his attacks on the political left, his party never polled well and was little more than peripheral at the time of his 1940coup. (More on Him Here)