In April 1940, Germany invaded Norway. Despite Great Britain’s attempt to help, Norway ultimately surrendered that June. The King and the Norwegian government fled to London, while Vidkun Quisling, a Nazi sympathizer, proclaimed himself prime minister. At that time, the Norwegian Jewish community numbered about 1,700, including 200 Jewish refugees from Central Europe who arrived in the 1930s to escape Nazi persecution.

Initially, the Nazis placed very few restrictions on the Jews of Norway. But in the fall of 1942, the Germans, with support from the Norwegian police, began rounding up members of the Jewish community for deportation to concentration camps, primarily to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In a series of mass arrests, nearly 800 Jews were deported. All but a small handful perished. Notably, Norwegian church leaders strongly protested these deportations.

The Norwegian Resistance set out to warn as many Jews as possible just before the mass arrests in 1942. Together, the Resistance and ordinary citizens of Norway rescued about 900 Jews. They hid their Jewish countrymen until safe passage could be arranged to neutral Sweden, primarily over very difficult terrain in the depths of winter.

When the war was over, Norway took steps to reestablish Jewish community life. In 1997-98, the Norwegian government offered restitution to Jews and their families, helping the country come to terms with the persecution of Jews under the Quisling regime. Today, ~1,400 Jews are part of the Norwegian community.