Camps in Norway for foreign teenagers. Higher education in Norway. Finnmark celebrates Liberation Day in a special way
The sound in the headphones indicates a find.
Øystein Moe bends down, puts down the metal detector and picks up a shovel. With an experienced hand, he drives the shovel into the shallow layer of soil on a country road a couple of times.
Archaeologist Cathrine Stangebye Engebretsen visibly perks up when she sees what she has dug up. A small flat metal object with the letters "STAL" and the first two digits of the prisoner's number.
That's enough for her to know. This is half of a tag that belonged to a Russian prisoner of war, where STAL is half of the word STALAG (Stammlager), which means prisoner of war camp.
We know little about the fate of the prisoner of war himself - only that he was brought here to die.
We are located on Mellom Bulaeren, near the island of Nøtterey in the Oslofjord. From the post-war years until its closure in the late 1990s, the soldiers of Fort Bulairne had their own training ground here.
Before that, the island had a very dark past. As a rule, Nazi crimes are associated with extermination camps in Germany and Poland. What is less known is that in the idyllic skerries of Tønsberg, the Nazis also established a prison camp that gradually became an extermination camp.
Since the autumn of 1941, more than 100 thousand Soviet prisoners of war were sent to forced labor in occupied Norway. Almost 14 thousand of them died. The vast majority were in Northern Norway, where they died from disease and exhaustion.
Those who were lucky were housed in barracks. Others had to make do with pigsties, or, in the worst case, dig their own holes in the ground. The death toll exceeds the total Norwegian casualties - both civilian and military - during the entire war.
The sea buried them
Bulärne was a sub-camp of the main Stalag 303 camp at Jørstadmoen near Lillehamer. The camp was created in 1943 for 290 prisoners who were sent to physically difficult work associated with the construction of defensive structures. Most of the prisoners were Soviet.
In December 1944, almost all the prisoners were sent from here to another place, they were replaced by prisoners who were too sick to work. Most suffered from tuberculosis, they were simply locked in the camp and, one might say, left to their own devices: to die.
German soldiers were afraid of getting infected, so they preferred not to stand guard on the inside of the double barbed wire.
About 20 healthy prisoners remained in the camp to carry out ongoing work on the fortifications. It is difficult to imagine what conditions were like in the camp during the last war winter. Behind the double barbed wire there was a muddy field with an area of 125x70 meters, on which there were ten simple plywood barracks, a dead house, a latrine and a guardhouse.
After the war, they said that the patients here died themselves: from illness, cold and exhaustion.
They lay in torn clothes, in cramped conditions, on narrow beds, breathing in the stench of feces and putrid wounds as tuberculosis slowly devoured them from the inside. Only in the spring of 1945, when the earth warmed up, did they have the opportunity to bury their dead.
Before this, prisoners were usually ordered to place corpses in paper bags, and then they were dragged to the edge of the shore. There they were placed in holes, which were filled with water at high tide, and then the sea finished everything off.
“Even in death they were deprived of human dignity. This was the racial ideology of the Eastern Front at its worst, when even here in Norway Soviet prisoners of war were considered second-class citizens,” says Engebretsen.
As an archaeologist and advisor to the Vestfold government, she is leading a project to find and preserve what remains of the old camp. Only in last years drew attention to the historical significance of this little-known “clean” death camp in Norway.
In recent years, a group of volunteers, the Friends of Mellom Bularne, has cleared all vegetation from the camp grounds and restored the guardhouse and the gate leading to the camp. They also suggested rebuilding the tower.
Operation Asphalt
Due to fear of infection, the barracks were burned down in the fall of 1945. But the remains of the foundations of the barracks and two towers still remain.
Iron rods with sharp teeth at the top protrude from the sea-smoothed rocks, this is the top of a barbed wire fence. You have to be careful, otherwise you might get hurt until you bleed.
This is in sharp contrast to the idyll around, where the wind and sun rays play with the treetops. Surely tourists arriving here by boat sunbathed on the shore, not knowing anything about what it had become last refuge 28 prisoners of war.
The cemetery is located half a kilometer from the camp itself, on south side islands. It was set up here at the very end of the war, but it filled up very quickly. According to representatives of the Service that oversees the condition of war graves, the remains of the deceased were dug up and transported to the Vestre gravlund cemetery in Oslo in 1953.
The relocation of the remains was part of Operation Asphalt, carried out by a government whose minister of defense was former Resistance member Jens Kr. Hauge (Jens Chr. Hauge).
Many of the war graves were located near military installations. During the Cold War, the authorities did not want the Russians to be able to drive around under the pretext of visiting graves and snooping around about Norwegian military installations. Most of the remains were transported to the Russian Cemetery in Tjøtta, where today 7,551 prisoners of war are buried there.
Dagbladet 06/05/2017Norwegian grave of Ivan
NRK 03/28/2017Finnmark celebrates Liberation Day in a special way
NRK 05/09/2017 In 2012, the location of the overgrown burial site in Bulern was localized and cleared of plants. Using ground penetrating radar and a metal detector, an aluminum tag was found that was worn by all the prisoners. Fragments of wooden crosses, which originally marked the graves, were also found in the ground.Although the remains have been moved, Engebretsen points out that there are arguments that the site may still have burial status. She is still looking for personal tokens that may contain important information for the relatives and grandchildren of the deceased. Many of them don’t even know that their grandfather, for example, died in Norway.
War criminal
Russian archives should contain documents from court cases conducted by the British War Crimes Commission. She, in particular, condemned the SS commandant of the camp, Walter Lindtner. However, it is impossible to accurately calculate the number of deaths in the Bulairn camp.
But there are many eyewitness accounts from May 1945, when the camp, where disease was rampant, was opened and the prisoners were transported to the Vestfold provincial hospital.
The information from the committee investigating German war crimes in Norway says: “Prisoners of war suffering from tuberculosis were housed in small plywood huts, the conditions in which were terrible for the dying. There was a doctor among the prisoners, but he did not have any medicine. The SS doctor usually visited the camp once a week. It appears the purpose of the visit was to watch the prisoners die rather than to provide them with medical care.”
According to the lists of the Østlandet Coast Artillery Brigade, the first prisoners died in March. Then the number of deaths began to rise. In April, prisoners died every other day; in May, up to three prisoners of war died every day.
The 28 prisoners buried in the local cemetery are those who died in the last two months of the war. On May 9, 1945, the Germans transferred 120 prisoners of war to Bulern. The next day, representatives of the Red Cross and Milorga entered the camp (organization of the military resistance in Norway during the Second World War - editor's note). 45 of the most seriously ill prisoners were transferred to the infectious diseases hospital on the same day, but half of them still died from tuberculosis after hospitalization.
Nakhodki
In the ruins that one of the barracks where prisoners lived turned into after a fire, something shiny attracts attention in the remains of bricks.
Katrine Engebretsen carefully scrapes dirt off a piece of tin that may once have been the lid of a box. If the light falls on it from the side, you can see the image of a woman scratched into the metal.
It seems that the prisoner who scratched this picture out of homesickness almost 70 years ago is trying to talk to us.
“It’s terribly interesting to work with objects that are so close to us in time,” the archaeologist admits enthusiastically.
The death camp still brings surprises.
Russian prisoners of war
Almost 102 thousand Soviet citizens forced into forced labor and prisoners of war were sent to Norway during World War II. Of these, about 13 thousand 700 died from hunger, disease or exhaustion. Many were executed for attempting to escape or for some minor offenses. Many Serbs and Poles were also sent to forced labor in Norway.
Prisoners of war from the USSR and Yugoslavia built not only defensive structures and airfields, but also parts of the E6 highway and railway through the province of Nordland. When the camps opened after the end of the war, they were a terrible sight. The most terrible conditions were in the Nordland camps.
In the summer of 1945, the prisoners were repatriated, but most of them were greeted coldly by their homeland, and many were again sent to forced labor. The order of the High Command of the Red Army boiled down to the fact that it was necessary to either fight or die. There was no other alternative. Therefore, everyone who surrendered was branded as traitors to the motherland.
InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.
In Norway, a government bombing and shooting at a youth camp killed 91 people. First, at about 15.30 local time (17.30 Moscow time), an explosion occurred near the government building. According to preliminary police data, a car filled with explosives exploded. A powerful blast wave broke glass in government buildings and the Ministry of Oil Industry. Norwegian television showed asphalt strewn with glass, broken doors, and wounded people lying on it. According to the latest data, seven people were killed and more than ten were injured as a result of the terrorist attack.
An hour and a half after the explosion near the government, an unknown person opened fire at the camp of the youth wing of the Workers' Party of Norway, which is headed by the country's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.
About 600 people, including many teenagers, gathered at the party rally on the island of Utøya (located on Lake Tyrifjord, about an hour's drive from Oslo). At approximately 17.00 (19.30 Moscow time) a young tall man in a police uniform came to the camp. Walking between the small houses of the camp where the participants lived, he shot at everyone who met him on the way. According to police, from "automatic weapons and handguns." “We all gathered at headquarters to talk about what happened in Oslo. Suddenly we heard shots. At first they thought it was nonsense, and then we ran out into the street,” 16-year-old survivor Hannah tells Norway’s Aftenposten publication. “I saw a policeman with earplugs. He looked at us and said: “I want to gather everyone.” And then he ran and started shooting at people." Participants in the rally ran to the water, many jumped into the lake to hide from the bullets. But the criminal stood near the shore and began shooting at the swimming teenagers, other eyewitnesses say. A young girl who was pulled out of the lake rescuers, told TV2: "He walked slowly around the island and shot at everyone he saw. In the end he came to where I was sitting and slowly killed ten people in front of my eyes. He was so calm, it was very scary."
As of 11.30 Saturday, 84 people were shot at the youth camp.
There could be more victims, police say. While combing the area on Utøya in search of victims, law enforcement agencies discovered a bomb planted near the camp. It didn't work "due to a technical reason." Dozens of young people remain in hospitals. Doctors say the number of victims may rise: the condition of many patients is assessed as extremely serious.
After the terrorist attack in Oslo and the first reports of a shooting at a youth camp, the Norwegian media immediately began writing about the Islamist trail. But the person detained on Utøya turned out to be an ethnic Norwegian. All Western media have already published photographs of 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, a tall, green-eyed Norwegian with light brown hair.
According to reports, Breivik held far-right views. A friend of the criminal told Gang Verdens that the Norwegian became a nationalist several years ago, “somewhere after twenty-five.”
He expressed his far-right beliefs in discussions on various websites. “He is an ardent opponent of the idea that people of different cultures can live side by side with each other,” says the publication’s interlocutor.
Social media users almost immediately discovered Breivik’s Facebook page. His interests include bodybuilding, conservative politics and Freemasonry. He indicated his place of work as the company Breivik Geofarm, where he worked as a director. According to the VG publication (Verdens Gang newspaper - Gazeta.Ru), Breivik founded the company in 2009, it grew vegetables. The alleged perpetrator's Facebook page has now been closed.
There is one entry in it: “One person who has faith is equal in strength to 100 thousand who have only interests.” Breivik is currently being questioned by the police.
There is no doubt that the terrorist attack in Oslo and the youth camp shooting are connected. Police believe the attacks were carried out by several people. Now the authorities are looking for Breivik’s accomplices; searches took place at the address from which he accessed Twitter and Facebook.
Police sources believe that both the Oslo bombings and the Utøya shooting were attempts on the life of the country's prime minister. He was expected to arrive at the camp of his party's youth wing on Friday evening. As a result, the prime minister was working from home, a government spokesman said, and was not at government headquarters or at Utøya on Friday. After the Oslo bombings, Stoltenberg gave only telephone interviews: the police advised him not to appear in public for now. The Prime Minister called an urgent press conference on Saturday morning.
“Not since World War II has our country suffered so much,” he said. The official called Friday's events "a nightmare and a tragedy for the nation."
“The democratic foundations of Norway,” according to the Prime Minister, will not be shaken. Stoltenberg promised the country “even more democracy.”
“You will not destroy us. You will not destroy our democracy and ideals,” he said in front of television cameras. The official also said that he sees no reason yet to raise the threat level in the country. However, on Saturday it became known that the Norwegian authorities decided to restore border controls with the countries of the Schengen area.
Law enforcement agencies and Norwegian authorities have not officially announced which groups may be involved in the terrorist attacks. The Norwegian television channel NRK reported that the unknown Islamist group “Supporters of Global Jihad” published a message on its website saying that the explosion and attack on the youth political forum was a reaction to the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by the Norwegian media.
However, after the arrest of ethnic Norwegian Breivik, few people in Norway believe in the version of an attack by Islamists.
“If you compare Norway with other countries, I would not say that we have any big problem with right-wing extremists. But we have certain groups, we monitor them. Our police are aware of their existence,” said Prime Minister Stoltenberg.
Norwegian International Institute expert Jakob Godziminski told Reuters that Norwegian far-right groups are more likely to be involved in tragic events than the Islamists. He noted that in Norway, as throughout Europe, right-wing ideas have become more popular due to problems with immigrants. “It’s strange for Islamists to attack a local political event. Attack on youth camp tells us it's something else. If the Islamists wanted to attack us, they would have planted bombs in Oslo, which is closest to the center shopping mall, and not to a remote island,” the expert believes.
At the moment, Norway remains one of the few countries in the world where both citizens of the country and foreign students have the opportunity to study at universities for free, which makes this direction popular among Russian applicants.
The training can be completed in both Norwegian and English. The education system in Norway complies with the rules of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS). The study program for each subject includes lectures, seminars and self-study, and is measured in credits. The standard rate for a year at full load is 60 credits. Examination grades for students are given on a scale of A – F, where A is the highest score and F is the lowest, E is failure. For some subjects, certification is carried out in a pass/fail format.
Applications for the fall semester (usually beginning in mid-August) are accepted from December 1 to March 15. To enroll in a bachelor's degree, you most often need a document confirming secondary education, one year of study at a Russian university, proof of sufficient knowledge of English or Norwegian, a passport and proof of financial solvency. However, the procedure for collecting documents for admission should begin as early as possible, so that there is time to submit applications for scholarships and student housing.
25 children from the war zone were able to rest and recover at a children's camp in Norway. The guys spent ten unforgettable days in games, travel, communication with each other and God. The international coordinator of the “From Family to Family” program, Irina Babak, went to the camp with the children.
- Irina, how were you received in Norway?
After our long but interesting journey from the ferry and through Sweden to Norway, we arrived at the long-awaited camp! We were greeted by a wonderful team of Norwegian friends who were looking forward to the children's arrival. After getting acquainted, a hearty dinner and dessert, we went on a small excursion around the camp and to the sea. Beautiful nature, fresh air, warm sea and a wonderful friendly atmosphere - all this is called happiness.
- How were your days in the camp?
Every day was especially eventful and exciting. The theme of the camp was “Be a Winner!” Children learned to overcome obstacles and win in different situations. Every day, children listened to fascinating classes on the topic “The Bible - instructions for a successful life”, “The patient and faithful will receive what is promised from God”, “I am wonderfully created”, “Joy in God is our strength”.
Many children saw the sea for the first time and frolicked and swam in it with great joy. They could regularly attend various master classes on cooking, coloring T-shirts, making postcards, and even painting on rocks. One day together we played a friendly football match with friends from Norway.
- What else impressed you in the camp?
Our entire team and the children visited one of the largest amusement parks in Norway! Children had the opportunity to ride all the slides, swings, water and air attractions. It was unforgettable, fun and very interesting! All the guys said that they had only seen such rides on TV and never dreamed of ever riding them.
We also had a group of youth from the Norwegian church come to visit us along with their pastor. We sang, played, listened to God's Word together and had a lot of fun!
The guys had the opportunity to go on an excursion to the capital of Norway - Oslo! We visited royal park, watched the ceremonial change of guards of the royal army, visited the museum of the history of the development of skiing in Norway and climbed the most high point Oslo and the ski jump. Well, our trip ended with dinner at McDonald's. What could be better and tastier? It is impossible to convey in words the beauty that we saw! This excursion will forever remain a bright ray in the memory of children.
One of the days became a dream come true for many guys - riding a mustang! Our friend and amazingly kind man took all the children for a ride in his Mustang! Joy and delight knew no bounds.
Each child took with them a lot of gifts; Norwegian friends gave the children a lot of new clothes and shoes for school.
The guys were very impressed by the camp, eventful interesting life. Of course, the camp became a very vivid memory for children who daily hear the sounds of exploding shells in a military conflict zone. Thanks to our friends from Norway, who care about children and helped make this fairy tale come true.
Global Christian Support Press Center
In 1942, the Nazis sent about 4,500 Yugoslav prisoners to concentration camps in Northern Norway. When the war ended, only one third remained alive. Some of the horrors of the concentration camps became common knowledge. Incomprehensible things were discovered. Genocide. Mass destruction of people. Nazi monsters. And not only Nazi ones. Norwegians also served as guards in these camps. Many of them were convicted after the war of cruelty and murder of prisoners. How did this become possible? Maybe these people were mentally insane, monsters? Or is it the result of abnormal social systems and relationships? Nils Christie examines this in detail in his master's thesis, published in book form in 1952. Today, more than half a century later, the answer to these questions appears in even darker tones. Phenomena in the spirit of the Holocaust are considered by many to be natural results of the development of our civilization.
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by liters company.
II. Serbian camps
In this chapter we will outline the history of the so-called “Serbian camps” in Northern Norway. We will try to find out who the Yugoslavs were who ended up in these camps, where they came from and how many there were. We will trace their path from Yugoslavia to the concentration camps in Norway, and then try to give as much information as possible. Full description these camps. We will then compare living conditions in Serbian camps with conditions in concentration camps in general, which we wrote about earlier. Our work mainly covers the period from the summer of 1942 - when the Serbs entered our country - until April 1943, when the Norwegian guards were recalled from the camps.
Sources
Giving general characteristics concentration camps, we use either the reports of neutral observers or the memories of former prisoners and do not concern the opinions of the guards. In describing the Serbian camps we will follow the same principle and will use materials provided by the civilian population, as well as the memories of Yugoslav prisoners, and will not touch on the positions of the Norwegian guards. Thus, the principle of the same approach to the use of sources will be observed.
Much of the material for this chapter was found in the court records of the Norwegian guards' cases. We studied many sentences that described in detail the living conditions in the camp. In addition, we have reviewed the testimony of Norwegian civilians and Yugoslavs. For this purpose, we studied a total of 30 or 40 court cases. (Later we needed to study much large quantity affairs).
However, on many points there is directly contradictory information about the living conditions in the Serbian camps. Most of Yugoslavs were killed, and those who survived are in Yugoslavia, and during the trials only a few were interviewed. Language differences only complicate the picture. As for the testimony of Norwegian residents, they can hardly be relied upon, since the camps were usually located far from the villages, and people knew little about what was happening there, and the Germans carefully hid all this.
As a result, many uncertainties remain, which will be the task of historians to clarify over time. We will not touch on these ambiguities or controversial points, unless such a need arises for our analysis. We will dwell here only on those facts that we will need later.
In the summer of 1942, the Germans began sending Yugoslav prisoners to Norway to be placed in camps. Most of the Yugoslavs were initially collected in German concentration camps and then transported by sea to Bergen or Trondheim. Those who arrived in Bergen stayed there for several weeks, while those who arrived in Trondheim immediately moved on to their destination - the camps built by the Germans in Northern Norway.
Why did they become prisoners?
There are conflicting opinions on this matter, as well as about what kind of people they were. We will take a closer look at the different opinions on this later. Everything indicates, however, that most Yugoslavs were political prisoners, just like the Norwegians who ended up in German concentration camps. This is evidenced by three circumstances. Firstly, it is very unlikely that the Germans would transport ordinary prisoners so far. Secondly, there are a number of Yugoslav testimonies given during the trials against the Norwegian guards, in which they explain why and how they ended up in Norway. Thirdly, after the war, almost all the surviving Yugoslavs wanted to return to their homeland. It is unlikely that they would have expressed such a desire if they were not political prisoners, but, for example, criminals.
Individual cases
A. A., born in A. in Yugoslavia, gave the following testimony in 1947, which was read to him and approved by him:
“The Germans took me on February 16, 1942 - I was a partisan and was captured after a battle with the Germans. I spent seven days under arrest in the city of Obrenovac, then I was sent to Sabac. I sat there until April 26, when I was sent to Austria. I spent 12 days in Camp Ademarchoff before being sent to Meling in Germany. I stayed in this camp for a month, and then I was sent to Norway. We arrived in Trondheim, from there we were taken by train to Korgen, where we arrived on June 23, 1942. At that moment there were no Norwegian guards there, only Germans. Norwegian guards appeared on June 27 or 28..."
V.V., 30 years old, gave the following testimony during interrogation in March 1947:
“On February 16, 1942, the Germans arrested me in my house in Vysoka. From there I was sent to a camp in Jasenovac and then to the German camp Zamli near Belgrade. From there they were sent to Stettin, and from Stettin by boat to Trondheim..."
Almost all the witness statements that we were able to read begin this way. They are very similar to the stories of many Norwegian prisoners - with the difference that the Norwegians were traveling in the opposite direction.
Number of prisoners
It is very difficult to find out how many Yugoslavs came to our country in the period of interest to us or before it - that is, when there were Norwegian guards in the camps. The Yugoslavs arrived in separate groups on ships to various ports, and in addition, they were constantly, right up to liberation, transferred from camp to camp. Most trials against Norwegian security guards involve quantitative data, but they are extremely contradictory. Most agree that the total number Yugoslav prisoners in Norway during the war numbered from three to five thousand people. According to our own calculations, based on documents and court cases, it turns out that Norwegian guards supervised at least 2,717 Yugoslavs. This is the absolute minimum, and we do not take into account here those groups of Yugoslavs who came to Norway after the Norwegian guards were removed from the camps.
For our purpose it is not so important that we cannot count with any great degree of accuracy the total number of Yugoslavs with whom the Norwegians dealt. It also does not matter that we later encountered an even greater difficulty when we tried to calculate the total number of Yugoslav deaths during the period when Norwegian guards were in the camps. Of course, it would be interesting to know how many Yugoslavs ended up here and how many died while there were Norwegian guards in the camps, however, even without knowing this, we can still get a general idea of most of the Serbian camps.
Five different camps in Northern Norway were the first destination for Yugoslav prisoners. The camp in the city of Karasjod was the northernmost, then Beisfjord near Narvik and the Bjornefjell camp, where the entire Beisfjord camp was transferred somewhat later. To the south, in the commune of Saltdal, there was the Rognan camp, and even further south - the Korgen and Usen camps in the village of Elsfjord. Later, the Yugoslavs were transferred to other camps. However, by this time the Norwegian guards had already been removed, and so we did not explore these new camps.
Overall, it appears that the five camps were quite similar to each other in terms of living conditions and the behavior of the guards. Several of them were subordinate to the same commandant. We were unable to find out whether all camps obeyed him. As for the German officers, they moved from one camp to another. The same thing happened with the Norwegian guards. Descriptions of the camps produce the same general impression. So we'll take a closer look at a few camps and then give some examples from others.
Let's start with the northernmost camp - in the city of Karashok. It is particularly suitable as a starting point because the camp was located next to a church and there are a number of testimonies about the conditions of prisoners there. In contrast to many other camps, here we know quite accurately how many Yugoslavs arrived to the camp, and how many of them remained alive, when the camp was closed after some time.
At the end of July, 374 or 375 Yugoslavs arrived in Karasjok. Initially, 400 prisoners were sent from Bergen, says in his testimony the former secretary of the Yugoslav mission in Oslo, Memail Jesits, who himself was among the prisoners. When the prisoners arrived from Bergen to Tromsø, they were asked if there were any sick people among them. 26 people said they were sick, and the Germans immediately shot them.
During the first month, and maybe a little longer, only German guards served. Later, apparently in mid-August, 20 Norwegians who had previously served in Beisfjord and Bjornefjell appeared. The camp was closed in the second half of December of the same 1942, and the survivors were transferred to the Usen camp in the village of Elsfjord. The sentence handed down by the Holugaland District Court for Norwegian guard number 31 states that when the camp closed, only 104 or 105 of the 375 people who arrived in Karasjok in the summer of that year were still alive. “The rest died due to disease, died from hunger or ill-treatment, and some were shot,” the verdict reads. These data coincide with what the Yugoslavs showed. The already mentioned secretary of the mission reports that during transportation to the south there were 100 people left. On the other hand, in the verdicts against the Norwegian guards from the Usen camp in the village of Elsfjord, it is reported that 150 Yugoslavs arrived there from the Karashok camp. The reliability of this figure is questionable. However, whatever the true figure, one thing is clear - almost two thirds of the Yugoslavs died within a few months of their stay in the Karasjok camp. It is likely that there were more dead.
Let's try to describe the impression that the Yugoslav prisoners themselves made on the civilian population, and what happened in the “Serbian camps.” We will mainly follow a copy of the report containing the statements of thirty-three different civilian witnesses that these witnesses gave to various investigators. These testimonies create an almost homogeneous picture of the impression that the camps made on the population. As for the points of interest to us, there are no significant differences in the testimony of witnesses.
S.S., age - 30 years old, living in the city of Karashok, was interrogated in the Lensman's office on May 2, 1946, familiarized himself with the case materials, realized his responsibility as a witness and voluntarily gave the following testimony:
“In the fall of 1942, I worked on the road between the city of Karashok and Finnish border. Several groups of Serbs were working on the same road. Each group consisted of 15–20 people with guards. The guards were armed and also had sticks with which they beat and stabbed the prisoners. The guards were mainly Wehrmacht and O.T. soldiers, but there were also Norwegians among them. The guards treated the Serbs cruelly - they beat and stabbed these unfortunate people with a stick, so that in the end they did not even react to the blows. The indifference of the prisoners was due to the torture to which they were subjected, and not least the lack of food.
The Serbs carried out routine road work and cut down forest. The guards made sure that they did not rest and carried logs to the work site. The logs were very large, and, as a rule, only three or four people carried one log, making superhuman efforts.
The Serbs came to work every morning at seven o'clock. To be on time by seven, they left the camp around six. They worked without a break for up to 12 hours. There was a break from 12.00 to 13.00, but the Serbs were not given food. The German guards brought food with them from the camp, or food was brought to them by car. Then the Serbs worked from 13.00 to 18.00. At six in the evening a car from Karashok arrived and picked them up. It was painful to look at these people in the evening. They supported each other, and those who could not walk were literally dragged along by the others.”
D. D., age - 50 years old, living in the city of Karashok, was interrogated in the Lensman's office on May 14, 1946, familiarized himself with the case materials, realized his responsibility as a witness and voluntarily gave the following testimony:
“I worked on road construction in various places around Karashok. In 1942, during the Serbian stay in the camp, I worked in a quarry near Ridenjarga. Serbs also worked here under the protection of German and Norwegian guards. I was the foreman of a group consisting of Norwegian workers, and we did our own thing, while the Germans forced the Serbs to work for themselves...
Work at the quarry began at seven o'clock in the morning and continued until noon without a break. From 12.00 to 13.00 there was an hour break. The Serbs were given only a piece of dry bread. Before receiving this piece, they had to lie on their stomachs and do up to ten push-ups. It was a pity to look at them.
After an hour's break for lunch and rest, they worked until 17.00. The prisoners walked back to the camp, which was two kilometers away. These columns into the camp were a deplorable sight. The guards raged like wild animals, and those who could not walk from exhaustion were lashed with whips. Those who were still standing helped the others.”
We see that between these testimonies there are minor discrepancies in the indication of the duration of the working day. Perhaps there was such a difference between road works and work in a quarry. It is also known from other sources that the Germans gave small concessions - for example, a piece of bread - to those who were engaged in particularly difficult work.
FOOD AND CLOTHING:
As we saw above, prisoners spent the whole day without food or received one piece of bread. A number of other testimonies also indicate that the Yugoslavs received very little food:
E. E., age – 16 years old, living in the city of Karashok, was interrogated in the Lensman’s office on May 7, 1946, familiarized himself with the case materials, realized his responsibility as a witness and voluntarily gave the following testimony:
“I can name another episode when the guards amused themselves by forcing the Serbs to fight over a piece of bread. Serbs were constantly working in front of Isaksen's bakery, and old bread was thrown out to them. They fought each other for this piece of bread. A whole bunch of prisoners could rush for one piece of bread. When someone did manage to get this piece and tried to eat it, the others rushed at him and tried to take it away. They threw food not to feed the unfortunate, but to have fun in this way.”
Or one more example: F. F., age 48 years old, living in the city of Karashok, was interrogated in the Lensman’s office on April 26, 1946, familiarized himself with the case materials, realized his responsibility as a witness and voluntarily gave the following testimony:
“The Serbs I saw were skinny and pitiful. They had almost no clothes, few had hats, and if they did, they did not suit the climate. It would not be an exaggeration to say that they were dressed in rags, and every now and then a bare arm or leg was visible.
They didn't have shoes. In the bitter cold they walked barefoot, their feet wrapped in pieces of burlap. There was nothing on my hands either. I believe that they did not have the opportunity to properly wash and clean themselves up. Everyone I saw was unshaven and dirty. But I do not think that the reason for this was their uncleanliness, because among them there was a doctor, as far as I heard.
The entire Serbian camp was a disgrace for the entire church parish, and here everyone knew in what conditions they lived and how they were treated.”
G. G., age 40, living in the city of Karashok, was interrogated in the Lensman’s office on April 29, 1946, familiarized himself with the case materials, realized his responsibility as a witness and voluntarily gave the following testimony:
“Once a guy and I hid food in a woodpile. She was found by four Serbs. There was enough food for one person, but they divided it among themselves. We stood nearby and watched. When they realized that the food was from us, they knelt down, crossed their arms and thanked us.
The prisoners were dressed in rags, but over time things got a little better. This was explained by the fact that they divided among themselves the rags of their starved or killed comrades. At least that's how I understood it. There was no hiding that it was an extermination camp, and that the prisoners were starved and tortured deliberately.”
ABUSE AND COLD
N.N., age 41, living in the city of Karashok, was interrogated in the Lensman’s office on June 13, 1946, familiarized himself with the case materials, realized his responsibility as a witness and voluntarily gave the following testimony:
“In 1942, there were prisoners here in the city of Karasok, and I found out that they were Serbs. At one time they were supervised by the Germans, but later Norwegian guys also appeared. Cruel treatment with prisoners it was a common thing, and not a day passed without one of the prisoners being carried home by his comrades in their arms. All the prisoners were very poorly dressed, although the temperature on some days dropped below 25 degrees below zero. It was not uncommon to see prisoners with bare arms or legs. It’s safe to say that these people were subjected to inhuman torture.”
Recorded from the words of I. I., age 65 years old, living in the town of Karashok, interrogated in the Lensman’s office on December 4, aware of his responsibility as a witness:
“He lives in the northern part of the city of Karashok in the area adjacent to the church, under the mountain, where the Germans had a camp with barracks. The Serbian camp was a little further on the same hill. The Germans did not have running water in the barracks at that time, and they forced Serbian prisoners to carry water from the river to the camp, a distance of several hundred meters.
On the way, the prisoners passed his house at eight o'clock in the morning, right under his window. Each of them carried three trunks of water, 20 liters each - one trunk in each hand and one on his back. A staircase with wooden steps led up the mountain. Every time one of the Serbs slowed down, the guard hit him with a thin pole. The witness never saw the guard hitting them with the butt of his rifle. Many who could not climb the stairs were beaten so that they could no longer get up. Then they were dragged up the hill, and the witness does not know what was done to them. The witness noticed one lanky Serb in the caravan. They beat him until he fell and could no longer get up. Then he was dragged upstairs, and he was never seen again.
End of introductory fragment.
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The following is an introductory fragment of the book Concentration Camp Guards. Norwegian guards of the “Serbian camps” in Northern Norway in 1942-1943. A Case Study (Nils Christie, 2010) provided by our book partner -