Norway’s National Heritage Board wants to include the country’s oldest Jewish cemetery and a memorial to World War II deportations in the national roster of protected monuments. The two sites in Oslo are the Jewish cemetery at Sofienberg park and the memorial “Place for Remembrance.”
In an announcement June 14, the NHB said the move was part of its “investment in national minorities’ cultural monuments.”
The background for this national initiative is a survey of protected cultural monuments in Norway from 2011, where it was revealed that very few cultural monuments related to national minorities were represented on the protection list. As part of the conservation strategy, the National Heritage Board will promote and gain increased knowledge about our national minorities’ cultural monuments and preserve a selection of these. The cultural monuments that are selected for protection must be representative of Jewish life and history in Norway and contribute to safeguarding Jewish history in a European context.
Consultations on the protection proposals will continue until August 23.
The Jewish cemetery at what today is Sofienberg park was in use from 1885 until 1917, when it was replaced by a new cemetery at Helsfyr. (It is listed as a local monument.)
According to the Heritage Board, it is not only the oldest Jewish cemetery in Norway, but also “the oldest known cultural monument that can be linked to the Jewish population group in Norway, and is also the first non-Christian burial site in modern times.”
The cemetery was established as a Jewish part of a larger cemetery. Respecting the Jewish tradition that Jewish graves cannot be removed, the cemetery remained intact when the entire Sofienberg cemetery area was converted into a park in the 1960s.
The Jewish cemetery includes 197 graves and is surrounded by an iron fence erected in 1917 to replace a wooden fence. The burial chapel once on the site no longer exists.
The “Place for Remembrance” memorial commemorates the Norwegian Jews deported to Auschwitz in 1942-43. A total of 773 Jews were deported — by sea — to Auschwitz. Only 35 survived.
From this site on 26 November 1942, 529 Norwegian Jews were put on board the ship Donau and deported to the death camp at Auschwitz. On 25 February 1943, a further 158 Jews were sent from Filipstad Quay on the Gotenland.
Designed by the British sculptor Antony Gormley, the memorial, commissioned by the government in 2000, is located outside the wall sof Akershus Fortress in Oslo.
It consists of eight seatless chairs that are spread out on a lawn and facing the sea and the quay. The chairs are made of steel and are set up both in pairs and individually.
Read the Heritage Board announcement and find links to further documentation