The Destruction of Norway's Jews

 Bjarte Bruland, Chief curator and historian of Oslo Jewish Museum 

When Germany's armed forces attacked Norway in April 1940, there were some 2.100 Jews in the country, less than 0,1% of the population. Around 1.700 (numbers according to "Database of Jews in Norway 1940-1942" were members of the two organized Jewish communities. The largest of those communities was in Oslo; the other was situated in Trondheim. There had been a Jewish presence in Norway since the 1850's, when the Norwegian parliament finally annulled the part of § 2 of the Constitution of 1814 that banned Jews from the country.