The deportation of jews
This ship’s bell was struck on 26 November 1942 as the S/S Donau with 532 Jews on board- departed from the America Line quay in the Port of Oslo. Jews were arrested by Norwegian police officers and members of the Germanic SS Norway on orders issued by the German occupation authorities. The S/S Donau arrived at the seaport of Stettin three days later, and the passengers continued their journey by train. On 1 December the Norwegian Jews arrived at their final destination, Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. All men, women, and children who were found unfit to work—246 persons in total—were killed the same day. Only nine of those who were on board the S/S Donau survived the war. Altogether, only 34 out of the 772 Jews deported from Norway on the Donau, the Monte Rosa and the Gotenland survived.
A DARK CHAPTER
The deportation of the Jews constitutes a dark chapter in Norwegian and European history. The Holocaust denotes the Nazi mass murder of around six million Jews. Roma, Slavs, people with disabilities, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, communists, and other groups were also subjected to persecution and sometimes mass murder as designated enemies of the German “people’s community”.
THE EXHIBITION AT THE HL-CENTER
The permanent exhibition at the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities elucidates the ideological roots of the Holocaust, emphasizing the history of racism and anti-Semitism. It also examines the ascent of Nazi Germany and the state-controlled discrimination and extermination policy during World War II. The exhibition focuses on the plight of the Norwegian Jewsby telling the stories of the victims and documenting how Norwegians participated in stigmatizing and persecuting their fellow citizens. The Norwegian victims of the Holocaust are commemorated in a separate room at the end of the exhibition.
COMING TO TERMS WITH THE PAST
For a long time, the history of the Norwegian Jews during Word War II remained a blank spot in Norway. It was not until the 1990s that this particular aspect of the Nazi occupation of Norway received more public attention. In 1999 the Norwegian Parliament passed the restitution law compensating for financial losses experiencedby Norwegian Jews during World War II. The establishment of the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities and the Holocaust exhibition became part of the settlement awarded to the Jewish minority in Norway.
THE S/S DONAU
The S/S Donau, which had a gross register tonnage of 9035, was built by Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau in Hamburg in 1929 and owned by the German shipping company Nord-Deutscher Lloyd. The ship was originally designed for civilian purposes, but when war broke out it was requisitioned by the German Navy and equipped with anti-aircraft artillery and depth charges. After the invasion of Norway, the ship was used primarily to transport provisions and German troops to Norway but also to transfer German soldiers from Norway to the Eastern Front.
SUNK IN THE OSLO FJORD
During the Nazi occupation the S/S Donau was popularly known as the “slave ship” since it was used to transport Russian prisoners of war to Norway and Norwegian prisoners, including students and officers, to Germany and occupied Poland. The S/S Donau also carried hundreds of Norwegian sailors taken captive by German warships in May 1941. The ship sank on 17 January 1945 in the Oslo Fjord, due to a sabotage operation carried out by two members of the Norwegian resistance movement Max Manus and Roy Nielsen. The shipwreck was raised in 1952 and sold for scrap in Bremen.
THE SHIP’S BELL
The ship’s bell currently on display at the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities once hung on the foredeck of the S/S Donau, struck to signify port arrivals and departures. In the summer of 1945, Max Manus retrieved the bell from the bow of the shipwreck, which was still visible above the water. Installed in April 2014, the bell is on loan from the Resistance Museum at Akershus Fortress.