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Subscribe to RSSOSLO -- Norwegian police apologized for the first time Monday for their complicity in the deportation and murder of over 700 Jews during the Nazi occupation in World War II, just months after the prime minister made a formal apology.
"Norwegian police officers participated in the arrest and deportation of Jews," police chief Odd Reidar Humlegaard said on the 70th anniversary of Norway deporting the first group of Jews to Auschwitz.
"It is fitting that I express my regret for the role police played in the arrest and deportation of these completely innocent victims," he said.
State role already acknowledged
Vidkun Quisling, Norway's leader during the Nazi occupation whose name has become a synonym for traitor, ordered the registration of Jews in 1942 and the state apparatus played a complicit role in their eventual deportation.
Norway acknowledged the state's role in 1998 and paid some $60 million to Norwegian Jews and Jewish organizations in compensation for property seized.
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But the move fell short of a full apology, causing further national debate and the establishment of a Holocaust research center. Current prime minister Jens Stoltenberg only made a formal apology earlier this year.
Norway's Jewish population rose to around 2,100 by 1942 from 1,700 before the war as refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia fled the continent.
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Authorities eventually deported 772, of whom only 34 survived. Others either stayed in hiding or fled to neighboring Sweden, which protected its Jewish population and also accepted around 8,000 Danish Jews.
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These perfunctory apologies that are more than 60 years overdue are really lame. They don't serve any real purpose anymore. I would rather they put it in their history books that they were unimaginable a-holes and that they will NEVER again repeat that part of their despicable history.
One thing that kind of gets overlooked is that the occupied countries had to participate or else much worse things would happen to them.The Nazis were not playing any games.It was,either you help us deport the jews or you will get deported with them.Either way,Norways options were very limited and for sure a choice between several evils.
@ Wolfhound; Not true. The Norwegian, French, Dutch government willingly deported their own citizens to obtain favor from the nazis, not in fear of retaliation.
I understand the Jews want apologies and many have gotten payments from their Holocaust experiences and family deaths. But what of the other five million non-Jews who were slaughtered? Christians,political prisoners, gypsies, gays, handicapped, intellects and others targeted as undesirables by Hitler. Who is apologizing for them and giving their survivors monetary payments? It seems much focus is on the Jews, but nothing is being said about these other groups.
At some point I believe one needs to let go and move on. For all others have also suffered.Where do we draw the line on suffering and say enough? All have suffered in their past from one enemy or another. Let us forgive, move forward and never allow evil to take root again and spread its forbidden fruit across the face of the earth.Or else our children,grandchildren and so on, endlessly, will be paying for the bitter eaten fruit of our ancestors in history.Wipe the slate clean today.
A little late.ha-ha! Norway has always been a strange place.Many of the people are your typical hospitable Scandaniavians.However there has always been a sizeable nazi like" Aryan" group.During WW11 Norway was famous for its collaboration with the nazis via a fifth column of Quisling. The name is almost the same as traitor.Knut Hamsun the nobel prize writer also supported the nazis.I don´t know if their nazi tendencies comes from a strange blend of a state Protestant church combined with their blond hair type of Aryan pureness.They are the only country in Europe that supports the terrorist group hamas in Gaza.I suppose you can say "better late than never" for what the PM and police are doing with thr apology. But I´m afraid Norway still has very racist undercurrent.As good" liberals" they also they let in thousands of Muslims and now have a very serious crime problem as well as an Islamic terrorist threat. This can be confirmed by talking with Norwegians.Perhaps it´s ironic.The Norwegians who have always been anti Israel and Jewish( a least a sizeable part) don´t know what to with their Muslims.Well the story is about apologies for sending their Jews to the ovens ( unlike the Danes and Swedes who mostly protected them.Some Norwegians support Israel and the Jews through the" Born Again" evangelical movements but they are in the minority. Too many Norwegians,I´m afraid still smell of racism and anti Jewish sentiments.combined with a very strange state Protestant church.!
way to go Norway! Just try not to be such inhumane monstrous trash next time...
Surely despicable turning people over.It kind of makes more sense nowadays to try to keep immigrants out though.Europe is seeing,and eventually we will here,that more and more immigrants aren't really a good thing
Norwegian Anders Breivik -the Teutonic Knight- is the latest sample of a mass murderer,who has got internet and writing privileges- whom do you think he has written to? Germany's neoNazis and has followers. Norway was a Gau in WWII- Quisling was not the only one proNazi all the way- why the Norwegian police is now apologizing for deportations (plural)- police forces at that time had 'nationalistic= ultra nationals who enforced the 'Rassenwissenschaft as taught at the Universities in Third Reich. For those having Google Chrome- use instant translation and go to http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/532-juder-ble-fort-om-bord-pa-Donau-bare-9-kom-tilbake-7053033.html
Doubtlessly, my Russian and Ukrainian ancestors were somehow responsible for mistreating Jews in some way, shape, or form. You want me to apologize too?? Can we please stop the pandering?? It happened. It's tragic. It should never happen again. End of story. By the by, have the Turks apologized to the Armenians yet? Have Russian Communists apologized to Ukraine for starving millions in the Thirties. How about the Khmer Rouge atrocities under Pol Pot in Cambodia? Just askin'. Catch my drift?
Shil, I do believe that an apology was way too long in coming. We are speaking of a Government willingly participating in a despicable act. Pol Pot slaughtered his own, didn't leave the boarders of Cambodia, Turks are still in denial as are the Japanese for the Rape of Nanjing and other atrocities. Each Government must face their past demons or not, the Norwegians acknowledged their complicity, that is a good thing.
Americans did not grow up playing in the ruins and aftermath of the World Wars, as have the Europeans. As I understand it, following the second World War, thought and energy was turned immediately to the every day struggle to survive, to rebuild, to restore order to the shattered region - that people did not speak much about the atrocites of the war among one another let alone between the neighboring countries whose borders were for the brief history of war "behind enemy lines". With all respect, the conversations that these peoples and powers want to express at this time may be a necessary instrument to navigate the difficult waters of reconciliation. With all respect, the opinion an American may have regarding their conversations may be baseless.
Antisemitism has always existed in the Scandinavian countries as much as any other region on the planet. Good "Christians" just can't seem to shake that bad habit, no matter where they live.
It's ironic that the police are apologizing, at the same time that Norwegian politicians can't wait to stick it to the Jewish population - all 0.003 percent - again, for the mathematically-challenged, that's three one-thousandths of a single percent - of the population. To this day, Norway has laws on the book against preparing Kosher foods, for example.
Actually the jews were deported back to africa but got on the wrong bus. Give me a break.. but if the media wasn't owned and operated by the jews no one would ever see the endless items on who is wronging the poor jews.
70 years later! Another gift to Humanity from Norway. You have no idea how stupid your country looks like for it's past and present actions. Murdering folks and now giving someone 21 years in prison for murdering 77 innocent people. Good job Norway.
I think apologies from those who did not do the action or were not even adults when the event occurred are just ridiculous. What is the point? Should I apologize because my Dutch ancestors killed indigenous Americans 380-some ago??? Should the Italian government apologize because Romans enslaved and killed my Celtic ancestors 2000 years ago??
@ alan
Easy on the Norway bashing. Have you seen some of the beautiful women there?
... and btw this killer will never be walking the streets again im sure.
in his mind he was a fighter for a cause, too bad he was also a killer of children.
O.K Nazis were bad, o.k. we get it. Let's move on. You know who's bad now? MOOSLUMS!!! Stop dredging up the past and focus on today! What ever happened to journalists? Remember when they had balls (and were not 90 percent Demofags>