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Nazi concentration camps in Norway


During the German occupation of Norway in World War II the civilian occupying authorities with the Quisling regime and the German Wehrmacht operated a number of camps in Norway, including around 110 prison camps (or 294 camps according to the website "Fangeleirene i Saltdal"). After the fall of 1944 they filled up, as transportation of prisoners to Germany slowed down.

The Wehrmacht camps were largely POW camps and were scattered throughout the country. Some of these had extremely high mortality rates, owing to inhumane conditions and brutality.

Both established and improvised jails and prisons throughout the country were also used for internment by the Nazi authorities. In particular the Sicherheitspolizei and Sicherheitsdienst, headquartered at Victoria Terrasse, were notorious for torture and abuse of prisoners. Also, Arkivet in Kristiansand and Bandeklosteret in Trondheim became synonymous with torture and abuse.

The designated concentration camps were not classified as "KZ-Lager" by the Nazis, but rather as Häftingslager ("Detainee Camps") under the administration of the Nazi "security police," the SS and Gestapo. The Nazi authorities deported over 700 Jews from Norway to Auschwitz, over 500 Nacht und Nebel prisoners to Natzweiler; and thousands more to Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück and other prisons and camps in Germany. Most of these stayed in Norwegian camps during transit.

Although abuse, torture, and murder were commonplace in these camps, none of them was designated or functioned as extermination camps, nor did they reach the scale seen in camps in Germany, Poland, and Austria. It is estimated that between 38,000 and 40,000 individuals passed through this camp system, for a total of 60,000 prisoner years.


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