- Jewish Children's Home in Oslo
The Jewish Children's Home in Oslo was established in 1939 under the auspices of
Nansenhjelpen , a humanitarian organization established byOdd Nansen , the son ofNobel Peace Prize laureateFridtjof Nansen . It was intended as a safe haven forJew ish children underthe Holocaust , yet all the children eventually had to flee to avoid deportation whenNorway itself was occupied byNazi Germany .The first director, Nina Hasvold, was recruited by Norwegian psychiatrist Nic Waal after they had become acquainted in
Berlin while attending the Kinderseminar (Seminar on Children) run byWilhelm Reich . Nansenhjelpen board member Sigrid Helliesen Lund was also active in establishing the home.The first inhabitants of the home were Jewish refugees from
Vienna (known as "Wienerbarna", "the Vienna children"), who had arrived in June 1938 on the pretext of a summer vacation with the Norwegian Jewish community. After some time at the Jewish community's cabin at Skui inBærum and in foster care, they moved into rented facilities in Industrigaten and finally into a building the Jewish community had acquired at Holbergsgate 21 inOslo .Through the work of recently arrived psychiatrist
Leo Eitinger and Nina Lustig (who was later detained and deported, and immediately murdered in Auschwitz) fromBrno , Nansenhjelpen applied on humanitarian grounds to admit 100 Czech Jewish children who otherwise faced a grim future under the Nazi regime. The ministry of justice only reluctantly approved the application for a few (among them the noted psychiatristBerthold Grünfeld ), on the grounds that it would be "difficult to get rid of them."When Norway was occupied by Nazi Germany, conditions progressively worsened for the Norwegian Jewish community in general and also for the inhabitants of the Jewish children's home. Though Sigrid Helliesen Lund had the foresight to burn the entire list of Czech Jewish refugees on
April 9 1940 , German and Quisling authorities eventually caught up with the home.Seven children were sent back to their families in
Austria ; all of these perished inthe Holocaust . In addition, one boy who moved out of the home in October 1942 was murdered inAuschwitz .By the time the Nazi authorities ordered the detention and deportation of all Jews in Norway in November 1942, there were nine boys and five girls in the home. The staff at the home, individuals affiliated with Nansenhjelpen, and other helpful people with contacts within the generally unhelpful
Norwegian resistance movement Specify|date=August 2007 planned, improvised, and successfully carried out a complicated and daring escape. All the children in the home were able to evade capture and found their way to Sweden.All 14 children survived the Holocaust and subsequently found new homes in Norway,
Sweden , theUnited Kingdom , and theUnited States . In the summer of 2007, all were still alive.Of those who participated in the rescue effort, seven were honored as being among the
Righteous among the Nations throughYad Vashem in 2006:* Caroline (Nic) Waal, who orchestrated the escape, relying on her personal network of friends and family.
* Nina Hasvold, the director of the orphanage.
* Gerda Tanberg, who hid the children in her second floor apartment inUllern .
* Martin Solvang, a taxi driver who was very active in the underground railroad to Sweden, and drove the children toElverum .
* Ola Rauken, a "grenselos" ("border pilot"), who took the children into his farm and walked them 17 kilometers toward the border.
* Ola Breisjøberget, who took them across the border.
* Sigrid Helliesen Lund, a member of Sivorg who dedicated herself from the outset to saving the children's lives, planning the escape and arranging for provisions. [cite web |url=http://www.norgeslexi.com/krigslex/l/l4.html#lund-sigrid |title=Lund, Sigrid Helliesen |accessdate=2008-08-30 |work= |publisher=NorgesLexi.com |date= |language=Norwegian ]"See
Norwegian Righteous Among the Nations for a complete list of those Norwegians recognized."References
* [http://www.hlsenteret.no/Mapper/HL-senterets_apning/593/683 Speech by Irene Levin at the Righteous Among the Nations citation] no icon
* [http://www.dmt.oslo.no/joeder-i-norge/hefte/antisemittismen-joedehatet-i-norge.html History of antisemitism in Norway, at the synagogue in Oslo] no icon
* [http://www.dagogtid.no/arkiv/1999/48/roald.html Roald Helgheim: "Norge og jødane", inDag og Tid , December 2, 1999] no icon
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