Norway confronted by own Holocaust
January 29, 2021
NEWS ANALYSIS: Four recent books and a new film have brought Norwegians face-to-face with one of the darkest chapters in their own history: contributing to the Holocaust. New attention on Norwegian complicity in the arrests and deportation of Norwegian Jews during World War II has implicated wartime resistance heroes and set off massive public debate.
A scene from the new film about the deportation of Jewish Norwegians,
Den største forbrytelsen, based on the book by Norwegian author Marte Michelet. PHOTO: Karl Erik Brøndbo/Fantefilm
It all led to an uncomfortable run-up to this week’s annual if digitalized Holocaust Day ceremonies. The sharp and lengthy debate over one book in particular prompted calls for a truce last month. It’s likely to resume, though, as historians argue over how much resistance heroes and even the Norwegian government in exile in London knew about the deportations in advance, and even why so few