During the Second World War, hundreds of Norwegian Jews were arrested and deported. Only nine of the deportees survived and returned. Crown Prince Haakon has remembered them as he took part in the national memorial ceremony on International Holocaust Day in Oslo.
The ceremony took place at the memorial made by the British artist Antony Gormley, given as a gift from the Norwegian government in 2000.
The day was marked in several places in Norway and internationally in memory of the victims of the Nazi extermination policy during World War II. Crown Prince Haakon lit a torch to remember and symbolise the millions killed in the concentration camps. Guri Hjeltnes, director of the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities, welcomed the Crown Prince and other participants to the memorial service which took place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27th 2022. Hjeltnes spoke of the reasons the world stops to remember and the terrible events that saw six million Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps.
Six young people from the Jewish Society in Oslo came on stage to read short texts. In front of the stage, five torches burned and Guri Hjeltnes asked the Crown Prince to light the sixth and final torch. Each of the torches symbolized one million Jews. When Crown Prince Haakon had lit the last torch, each of the young people read a text that told of one of the Jews in Norway who was arrested, deported and killed in Auschwitz. After reading each other’s texts, each of them pointed to a torch and said, “This is a memorial to a million Jews killed.”
The Crown Prince spoke to the young people who performed words of remembrance on stage. After the young people had spoken, Norway`s Minister of Culture Anette Trettebergstuen gave a speech on behalf of the government. In addition to the Minister, chairwoman Ronen Bahar from the Jewish Faith Society and Oslo Mayor Marianne Borgen spoke.
The memorial service at Akershus Fortress was marked by the fact that this year it is 80 years since the largest deportation of Norwegian Jews took place with the transport ship M / S «Donau. The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, was established by the United Nations Security Council in 2005. On the same date in 1945, Soviet soldiers liberated prisoners in the largest concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The memorial service ended with the Jewish Faith Society singing the prayer El Maley Rakhamin. Before leaving the ceremony, Crown Prince Haakon met survivors, and he greeted the young people who had been on stage.
