Norwegian island hides Nazi death camp for Soviet POWs

A quiet island in the Oslofjord, now part of Færder National Park, once served as a Nazi death camp where emaciated Soviet prisoners were left to die behind barbed wire and watchtowers, according to a Dagbladet investigation.

When Norwegian resistance group Milorg and the Red Cross arrived at Mellom Bolærne on May 10, 1945, they found prisoners so starved they resembled shadows, reporter Oddmund Ljone wrote at the time. Bodies had been carried to the shore and abandoned to the sea.

“The prisoners at Bolærne have lived as if on a Devil’s Island, surrounded by rusted barbed wire, condemned to starve to death. For them, existence was just an endless series of days filled with hunger,” Ljone reported.

The camp, a sub-camp of Stalag 303 near Lillehammer, initially housed prisoners forced to construct military installations for the Nazis. By 1943, it had become a death camp where tuberculosis-stricken Soviet POWs were sent to die out of public view.

Around 100,000 Soviet prisoners were brought to Norway during the war; over 14,000 perished from starvation, disease, injuries, abuse, or executions. The Bolærne site, now marked only by a simple wooden sign, was among the most brutal.