Quite a number of countries are talking as paragons of virtue. Norway is one such nation. It is known as the West’s hitman and the word Quisling has become synonymous with ‘collaboration’ when Vidkum Quisling founded the fascist organization in 1933 modelling it after Germany’s Nazi party. The killings of Jews in Norway amounts to both genocide and war crimes against humanity. Virtually all Jews living in Norway were targeted. The War ended in 1945. A Commission to investigate crimes that took place in 1945 was undertaken 51 years later in 1996. The Holocaust Remembrance Day was declared only in 2012. All these apologies came 67 years after the war ended. Why are these same countries demanding Sri Lanka’s government and military to apologize when what happened in Sri Lanka cannot be compared to the situations they are apologizing for? Sri Lanka’s war was against LTTE terrorists who were killing all the communities of Sri Lanka.
Some history
Norway was ruled by Denmark between end of 13th century and 1814. The 1814 constitution held that Lutheran Protestantism was to be the state religion of Norway and Jews and Jesuits were forbidden from entering Norway. This ban on Jews was operational and lifted only in 1851.
“No person of the Jewish creed may enter Norway, far less settle down there”.
Perhaps C V Wigneswaran has picked up these lines from the Norwegians in his wrath against the Sinhalese, that too after living all his years among the Sinhalese and then going to live in the North from 2012 onwards only!
When Germany invaded Norway in 1940 there were approximately 1700 Jews in Norway. The Norwegian police and paramilitaries who were supporting the Germans began arresting Jews. The Quisling government helping the Germans declared the wrath against the Jews.
The Jews were singled out. Norwegian Ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs made it difficult for Jews to settle in Norway. Restrictions were justified on an economic basis.
§ Germans invaded Norway on 9 April 1940. By 1942, there were 2,173 Jews in Norway. Of these, it is estimated that 1,643 were Norwegian citizens, 240 were foreign citizens, and 290 were stateless.
§ The first Jewish Norwegian to be deported was Benjamin Bild, a labor union activist and mechanic, who was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he was beaten to death on 27 December 1942.
§ 500 prison camps had been set up in Norway during the war
§ Norwegians had different types of camps – extermination camps, killing sites, euthanasia centres, concentration camps, slave labor camps, transit camps, And this is the country that shamelessly operated these camps. Apologizing only in 1996 and ridiculed Sri Lanka’s camps that were put up to keep the close to 300,000 Tamils that had been rescued by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/norwaymap.html
§ May 1940 radios of Jews were confiscated
§ October 1941 registration of Jewish property started – Jewish businesses were confiscated. Commercial property such as retail stores, factories, workshops, etc.; and also personal property such as residences, bank accounts, automobiles, securities, furniture, and other fixtures they could find. Jewelry and other personal valuables were usually taken by German officials as “voluntary contributions to the German war effort.” In addition, Jewish professionals were typically deprived of any legal right to practice their profession: attorneys were disbarred, physicians and dentists lost their licenses, and craftsmen were locked out of their trade associations. Employers were pressured to fire all Jewish employees. In many cases, Jewish proprietors were forced to continue to work at their confiscated businesses for the benefit of the “new owners.”[
§ By February 1942 all remaining Jewish property in Trondheim was seized by Nazi authorities
§ the synagogues in Oslo and Trondheim were ordered to produce full rosters of their members, including their names, date of birth, profession, and address
§ the Falstad concentration camp was established near Levanger, north of Trondheim.
§ January 1942 a decree issued – Jews were given new identity cards with ‘J’ stamped in red. Advertisements in the mainstream press ordered all Norwegian Jews to immediately present themselves at the local police stations to have their identification papers stamped
§ a Jew was identified as anyone who had at least three “full-Jewish” grandparents; anyone who had two “full-Jewish” grandparents and was married to a Jew; or was a member of a Jewish congregation. This registration showed that about 1,400 Jewish adults lived in Norway.
§ October 1942 – male Jews arrested in Trondheim (northern Norwegian port city)
§ October 1942 – 260 male Jews arrested in Oslo. Any male over 15 years was arrested
§ November 1942 – all remaining Jews in Oslo including women, children, the sick and handicapped arrested and interned. 530 Jews were put into a ship and taken to Germany, from where they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau killing centre.
§ February 1943 -Another set of Jews were deported to Auschwitz – women, the elderly and children were sent to gas chambers and killed. Only 25 out of the 795 deported Jews survived.
§ About 900 Jews managed to escape to Sweden while others went into hiding
§ Between 1940 and 1945 more than 760 Jews were deported from Norway
§ Over 700 Jews were eventually killed
§ Even after World War 2 ended Jews were not permitted to come along because they were no longer Norwegian citizens, and the government after 8 May [1945] din not want to finance the homeward transportation”, according to historian Kjersti Dybvig
§ On May 8, 1945 German forces in Norway surrendered to the Allies. Quisling was arrested, found guilty of treason and executed on 24 October 1945.
§ On 27 May 1995, Bjørn Westlie published an article in the daily, Dagens Næringsliv, that highlighted the uncompensated financial loss incurred by the Norwegian Jewish community as a result of Nazi persecution during the war.
The War ended in 1945. A Commission to investigate crimes that took place in 1945 was undertaken only in 1996. The Holocaust Remembrance Day was declared only in 2012 with the Norwegian PM stating “that Norwegian citizens aided in the arrests and deportations of Norwegian Jews”. It was only in 2015 the Norwegian State Railways offered a public apology “The transportation of Jews that were to be deported and the use of POWs on the Nordland Line is a dark chapter of NSB’s history”. All these apologies came 67 years after the war ended. Why are these same countries demanding Sri Lanka’s government and military to apologize when no one is going after LTTE for 30 years of crimes against all the communities?
According to Reuters, in 1998 Norway paid about $60 million to Norwegian Jews and Jewish organizations in an acknowledgment of Oslo’s complicity in Nazi war crimes and to compensate Jewish-owned property that was confiscated by the state.
Paul Levine, a history professor at Uppsala University in Sweden says Norwegians did not take full blame but opted to shift blame to the Germans for the deportation of Norway’s Jews.
It is shameful how Norway that only investigated its criminal past after 51 years is showcasing itself as some virtuous nation coming forward to act as third party. We all know how biased Norwegians have been. Yet, how many of us are aware of Norway’s shameful past? Killers of Jews have no right to be coming forward as peace doves. Norway has no business to appear as third party for any nation.
Shenali D Waduge
srilankaopinion 