The Resistance Museum in Oslo was not included in our history tour of Norway.* That turned out to be a good thing in my opinion. My Own True Love and I spent the entire morning at the museum on our own the day after the tour ended. We would have been frustrated at being hurried through it as part of a group. And the museum told its own story very clearly.  In short, it’s a history bugg must-see if you’re in Oslo.

Here’s the longer version:

The Resistance Museum is unusual in that it was created by members of the resistance. Because the museum is in some ways a historical document writ large, the exhibits have not been updated since it was opened to the public in 1970.** Even without the help of modern museum technology, it is a powerful example of visual story telling. And it was the perfect end to our trip.

Beginning with the first day of the invasion, the museum uses photographs, blown-up newspaper pages, recordings, and artifacts to tell the story of Norway’s resistance to its Nazi occupiers (We were grateful that the museum designers provided English signs alongside the Norwegian.) The museum provides a step-by-step history of the Nazi occupation, giving the larger context and lots of detail for many of the stories we had heard over the tour.

A considerable section of the museum focused on the creation, training, deployment and adventures of the Kompani Linge, which operated  as saboteurs and resistance fighters in conjunction with Britain’s SOE (Special Operations Executive). But it did not limit the story to the obvious heroism of armed resistance. It also portrayed acts of civil disobedience against Nazi attacks on personal freedom. After all, heroes don’t always carry guns and blow things up.

Norwegian teachers in the concentration camp near Kirkenes.

If I had to choose a favorite story of the resistance from the museum, it would be the action of Norway’s school teachers, known as the Defense of Education. In 1942, Vidkun Quisling’s proto-Nazi government** created a new Norwegian Teacher’s Union. All teachers were required to join and pledge to teach Nazi principles in the classroom. Almost immediately, an underground group in Oslo sent out a statement for teachers to copy and mail to the authorities, stating that they refused to participate. Roughly 90 percent of Norway’s 14,000 teachers signed the protest statement.

Quisling responded by closing the schools for a month. Not a popular decision. More than 200,000 unhappy parents wrote letters of protest to the government. Meanwhile, many teachers defied the governments orders and held classes in private.

Hoping to break the teacher’s resistance, the government arrested some 1,000 male teachers. In April, the government of occupation sent 499 of those teachers to a concentration camp near Kirkenes, in the arctic. News of the relocation leaked and crowds gathered along the train tracks when the teachers were being transported, singing and giving the prisoners food.****

In mid-May, the Nazis gave up on creating a fascist teachers’ organization. By November, those teachers who survived had returned from the concentration camp. The Nazi curriculum was never imposed on Norway’s schools, thanks to Norway’s teachers.

*For those of you haven’t been reading along, in June My Own True Love and I spent two weeks in Norway on a history-nerd tour run by the Vesterheim Museum.  It was fabulous.
**Which is longer ago than I like to think.
***More to come on Quisling in a later blog.
****Not a small gesture given wartime food shortages.