A taxi was scheduled to arrive at midnight to take a mother from Trondheim, Norway, to the Swedish border. Meanwhile, three of her sons set out on skis for the border.
But when the taxi arrived, the mother refused to go. For five hours, one of her sons coaxed and pleaded before she agreed to leave her home. After many hours of driving, interrogation and negotiation, she made it to the safety of Sweden.
The story of the Abrahamsen family’s Holocaust-era survival is just one of many illustrated in an exhibition of photographs and narratives, “Jewish Life and Culture in Norway: Wergeland’s Legacy,” on display April 7, 8 and 11, at the Townsend Center at U.C. Berkeley.
The exhibit spans the Jewish experience in Norway from 1814-1945.
The exhibition honors Henrik Wergeland, a Norwegian poet, political activist and minister, who fought passionately to repeal a “Jewish clause” in the Norwegian constitution adopted in 1814. The clause explicitly prohibited Jewish immigration to the Norwegian kingdom.
“He met his first Jewish people in Paris in 1831, and was so moved. He thought the Jewish people were wonderful, and he championed this cause,” says Barbara Clevenger, one of the exhibition organizers and a board member of the Bay Area chapter of the American Scandinavian Foundation.
Wergeland wrote tirelessly on behalf of the cause, even while bedridden with the tuberculosis that would eventually kill him at the age of 37. The clause was successfully repealed by a majority vote in 1851.
Less than a decade later, 25 Jews resided in Norway. By the beginning of World War II, Norway had 1,000 Jewish households.
Through mostly family photographs, organized in two sets of 36-foot-long freestanding panels, the exhibition examines the initial decades of Jewish settlement in Norway — from the building of the first synagogues through the horror and escape during the German occupation.
Some of the more powerful photographs depict Jew-bashing posters installed in Norway’s cities, according to Clevenger. Vidkun Quisling’s Norwegian Nazi Party, beginning in the mid-1930s, supported anti-Semitic propaganda. Of the more than 700 Norwegian Jews deported to concentration camps, only 29 survived.
“The funding for the exhibit is part of Norway’s commitment to battling anti-Semitism,” Clevenger says.
That commitment began some years ago, she explains. In 1995, a series of investigative reports written by journalist Bjorn Westlie and historian Bjarte Bruland initiated a national public discussion concerning reparations.
As a result, the Skarpnes Committee was established to study the issue. The commission’s findings were split, and consequentially two reports were submitted.
“While the majority said that there’s nothing that could be done,” says Clevenger, “the Norwegian prime minister took the minority report that Norway had a moral responsibility and made a settlement.”
On March 11, 1999, the Norwegian parliament voted unanimously in favor of granting a total of 450 million Norwegian kroner ($58 million) in restitution, making Norway the first European nation to complete its restitution work.
An opening reception with Jo Benkow, former Speaker of the Norwegian parliament, will be held 7 p.m Thursday, April 7, at Stephens Hall. After its run at U.C. Berkeley, the exhibit will travel to the Reutlinger Community for Jewish Living in Danville.
“Jewish Life and Culture in Norway: Wergeland’s Legacy” will be on display 8 a.m.-5 p.m. April 7, 8 and 11, at 220 Stephens Hall, Townsend Center for the Humanities, U.C. Berkeley. Information: (510) 642-5355.