19/01/2021
Some true adventure stories make us better people, not because we see heroes and villains in them – we can see those in fiction – but because they are true, we know we can be like the people in them. This World War II story of the Norwegian police is such a story. It is a story of the redemptive power in making a conscious choice against evil – a choice available to each of us.
On the morning of August 16, 1943, the Oslo chief of police was executed by a German firing squad for his refusal to arrest three young women who failed to show up for mandatory labour under N**i occupation laws. The opposition to the police chief's ex*****on resulted in the arrest of hundreds of Norwegian policemen as potential security threats to the German occupation.
Two hundred and seventy-one police prisoners were transferred to Stutthof, a concentration camp in Eastern Poland. Walled off in a small camp of their own, the prisoners submitted themselves to re-education, learning German and performing various tasks to assist the German cause. In other words, they were offered an opportunity to participate in the N**i war effort without actually taking up arms. At the end of the process, they were asked to decide whether they would support the German cause or the Norwegian government in exile in London. The police prisoners unanimously refused to join the German war efforts and instead endorsed their government in exile.
By now (1944), not even the Germans had much confidence in victory. Still, their brutality towards their concentration camp prisoners continued without restraint. In Stutthof, the Norwegian police prisoners achieved real camaraderie with their fellow sufferers and were able to play a role in their survival. Their story is a reminder of the unmitigated evil of the N**i regime that must not be repeated in our time. In this retelling of the story, we see psychopaths chosen from civilian prisons to torment and terrify helpless internees in concentration camps. We see Jewish men kept in dog kennels and led out on leashes to lick the boots of their masters. We see supervisors boast openly about the number of prisoners they have killed. We see Jewish and Slavic women worked to death and then incinerated. Finally, we witness the N**i collapse and their defeat in a war of folly, based on the myth of racial superiority. During their ordeal in Stutthof, the Norwegian policemen's unity and discipline contributed to their survival and the survival of those they helped.
True to their training, the Norwegian police recorded the details of their experience in the Stutthof camp. These articulate, experienced witnesses provide a unique record, accurately documented, of how personal sacrifice can triumph over ruthless greed and violence. Their story enables the reader to experience the redemptive power of conscious choice against evil- a choice ‘For Truth & Honor’ we may be forced to make in our day.
