Wet Oslo

August 24, 2006-Resisting
(photos:Ra II)

I renamed this city New Orleans North. We spent the day opening and closing our umbrellas, putting on and taking off sun hats and jackets. At one point I was so preoccupied with keeping track of our belongings I asked David where our umbrellas were and we were holding them over our heads.

Our priority today was to see the Resistance Museum housed in the ancient Citadel. It was in a small building but the exhibit was extensive. Most of it was appropriately underground. It started with a history of the Nazi invasion of Norway and illustrated events with dioramas. From what I could discern it was still snowing on May 9, 1940. June 1940 saw the royals fleeing to Great Britain to set up a government there.

Every means possible was used to thwart the Nazis. Over 5,000 in the resistance were active in publishing and distributing newspapers that ran letters from the king. The Norwegian Merchant navy worked with the Allies and caused Nazi losses that affected the outcome of the war. The military trained in Great Britain. Radios and goods were smuggled in on fishing boats and people were smuggled out to Sweden. Quisling, a Norwegian, put himself up for and was appointed Nazi head of state in Norway. His name is now synonymous with traitor. He reintroduced paragraph 2 of the Constitution of Norway that said Jews were forbidden access to the realm. The people fought him all the way. Teachers and parents staged protests and refused to teach or have their children taught Nazi propaganda. Police, army officers, and university students rebelled. When Quisling tried to organize the unions the workers resigned. Church bishops refused to deal with the Nazis and on Easter, 1942, they all resigned. Some were arrested but most went underground and led worship. Too bad the Pope was not that courageous.

By 1942 Quisling knew he was in trouble. In 1943 he ordered conscription but most didn’t show up. By then seventy-three districts in Norway had resistance forces with several in Sweden as well. After invading France in 1944, Eisenhower began equipping the resistance. In November of 1944, the government of Norway in exile and the resistance met in Great Britain to organize a new government for after the war. Quisling was executed in front of what is now the Resistance Museum.

I didn’t know there were concentration camps in Norway. Grini held 19,000 prisoners. Natzweiler was an extermination camp. Skjderstad was a camp for teachers. There were 1800 Jews in Norway; 760 went to concentration camps, 24 survived. In March and April of 1945 1.6 million Norwegians were freed from the camps.

Boating

Our brains were fried from reading the commentary and looking at the exhibits. It’s a good thing we do not read Norwegian. We’d still be there. We looked forward to a calming ferry ride to the Bgdoy peninsula to see the Kon Tiki Museum of Thor Heyerdahl fame. The small ferry that transported only people must have been an old wooden fishing boat in a former life. As it pulled away from the wharf we realized we didn’t know how much it cost or how long the ride would be. It wasn’t too dear or too long and we passed the time eavesdropping on an Israeli family with a cute gap-toothed six-year old girl.

Thor Heyedahl had a theory. Early in his career as a zoologist he began to think there was an ancient connection and communication between the Middle East (Egypt) and S. America. If you recall, my emails from Bolivia and Peru posited the same theory despite our guides there insisting the Incas invented everything. Heyerdahl even thought there was contact between S. America and the South Seas. He based his theory on the fact that sweet potatoes, indigenous to S. America, were found in Polynesia. Polynesians called them kumara. The Quechua Indians called them cumar. He also saw the similarity between the step pyramids and giant statues as evidence of contact between East and West.

Reed boats were common to both Egyptians and S. American Indians. In 1969 Heyerdahl used boat builders from Chad to build a reed boat, the Ra I, in Egypt. When he was well into his voyage the ropes holding the reeds together disintegrated. In 1970 he brought Ayamara people from Lake Titicacca on the Bolivia-Peru border to Morocco to build Ra II. The Ra II was in the museum and it was a thrill to see it. We’d ridden in reed boats very similar to it when we were on Lake Titicacca earlier this year.

He hired eleven crewmen from different countries to prove that a diverse crew could work together and he sailed away. He was successful in proving that Egyptians could have sailed in a reed boat across the Atlantic to S. America.

Losing It

We learned one reason why we’re on an organized tour. We didn’t go on the optional tour with the group today. We opted to go it alone. There were things we wanted to see that weren’t on their tour. I’m sure you’ve missed hearing the stories about how we got lost. Wait no more. We walked most of a lovely peninsula looking for the Holocaust Center that opened yesterday. Yves asked us to let him know what it was like and we were determined to report back to him. If we weren’t so hungry and hadn’t walked so far we would have enjoyed looking at the mansions we passed. But it was nice being on foot so we could snoop over fences at a slow pace. No one knew where the museum was and a vendor at a kiosk didn’t know what the Holocaust was. We asked a tour bus driver who was clueless. Then we jumped on a city bus just to ask the driver. He was happy to help and saved the day

When we got there I thought it was placed very well. It was housed in the former home of Quisling, the Norwegian traitor, and across the street from a child-care center. It was nice imagery. We were stopped at the gate and asked for our concert tickets. Talk about being caught flat-footed. There was a concert taking place outdoors in the rain as only the Norwegians could enjoy and the museum was closed. The café was closed. We must have looked pathetic because when we pleaded our case and told them we’d only go in to purchase a book about the museum, they relented. We arrived just at intermission, which was good. We had to walk between the stage and bleacher full of spectators to get to the office. We successfully bought the book for Yves as a birthday present. The concert had just started up again as we slunk out scurrying in front of the stage. Mission accomplished! We were on our way back to the ferry.

Yves seemed pleased with the book from the Holocaust Center. He’d already contacted Grand Circle to see if they’d add it to the itinerary. The URL is hlsenteret.no.

Tomorrow we board a bus to some mountain village I cannot pronounce. We’ll spend the night in a small hotel. The elevators aren’t big enough for our luggage so we had to pack just for overnight as we did on the ferry. I don’t think I’ll be sending email from there.

Toby