Blood Road
The Blood Road (Norwegian: Blodveien) is a route northeast of Rognan in Saltdal Municipality in Nordland county, Norway that was built by prisoners during the Second World War.
[1][2][3] The route was a new section of Norwegian National Road 50 between Rognan and Langset on the east side of Saltdal Fjord (Saltdalsfjorden), where there was a ferry service before the war.
[5] The prisoners of war had very small daily rations, long working hours, poor clothing for winter use, primitive barracks, and miserable sanitation, and they were treated cruelly.
During the occupation of Norway in the Second World War, the German forces had enormous transport needs, particularly in Northern Norway, where, among other things, they needed to bring supplies to the north front, transport ore from LKAB via Narvik, nickel from Finland, and personnel and material throughout the entire region.
The very comprehensive plan was set aside, and in the first round 30,000 POWs were brought in to carry out railroad construction from Mosjoen to Tysfjord Municipality.
In the face of starvation, abuse, and hard work, the prisoners' health systematically failed, after which they either died or were euthanized as useless.
The new road over Korgfjellet (no) (a mountain) in Korgen Municipality was intended to replace another ferry connection along Highway 50 between Elsfjord and Hemnesberget.
They received small portions of simple food, their clothing was not suitable for winter use, and the hygiene conditions were extremely deficient with much lice infestation.
Personnel from the Norwegian Public Roads Administration led the efforts technically and served as blasting foremen and facility managers.
Because the service these boys are performing is the most horrible I've ever heard of, since they are simply performing what was called "knacker service" in the Thirty Years' War for the Germans.I have constantly heard rumors about what they're doing up there, and the other day I received confirmation from a man who came from there on leave because he came into my office and said "Heil og sæl, I am a trained killer."
He told me that the Serbs they are guarding up there were sentenced to death in Serbia, but for one reason or another were brought up to Finnmark, and from there they will not escape alive; and it is these young Hird members' despairing duty to finish off each of these prisoners.
[11]: 39 They were from the Hirdvaktbataljon (the Guard Battalion of the Hird) set up under the NS Ungdomsfylking (the Nasjonal Samling youth organization) in order to protect businesses from sabotage.
[11]: 39 The young men in the Hirdvaktbataljon mistreated the prisoners by hitting and kicking them, throwing stones, striking them with their rifle butts, and stabbing them with bayonets.
The prisoner that escaped was intercepted by Norwegian guards; when he understood that the attempt was unsuccessful he tried desperately to cut his throat with a lens from his glasses.
[12]: 95 The first mass executions at the Botn camp happened in late November 1942, right after the new group with Norwegian guard crews had arrived.
Julie Johansen lived near the Botn camp and became known as the "Yugoslavs' mother"; for her efforts she received an award from Josip Broz Tito after the war.
Some Saltdal residents worked as border guides and the escape route usually went to the Swedish mountain farm of Mavas via Mount Salt.
In Salten there were organized border guides, couriers, intelligence agents, and resisters making it possible for these escape routes to function.
He lived in a hut in the mountains south of Rognan, subsisted mostly on hunting and fishing, and was viewed as an odd character.
On April 12, a new group of 300 prisoners arrived at the camp, including the then 20-year-old Ostoja Kovačević, who wrote the book En times frihet (One Hour of Freedom).
A German non-commissioned officer had previously served as an orderly; he used to treat frostbite by chopping off frozen fingers with his bayonet.
[11]: 44 On July 14, 1943 Miloš Banjac (from village Klekovci, Kozarska Dubica) was shot by a Wehrmacht guard Ćoro, and his brother Marijan stretched a cross on the rock wall next to him with the dead man's blood.
He dared to report sick prisoners despite the fact that the commandant thought that he was sabotaging the road construction efforts.
The following were sentenced to death by firing squad: Franz Kiefer, the aforementioned August Riemer, Kurt Bretschneider, and Richard Hager, all of them SS members.
International law sets strict rules for the treatment of prisoners during war and recognizes the application of the strictest punishment for crimes against them.
In Professor Johannes Andenæs's office, Director General of Public Prosecutions Andreas Aulie told Christie that "There's something horrible we want to know more about."
The report was published in book form in 1972 by Pax Forlag, and was reissued in 2010 in connection with winning the Norwegian Sociology Canon award.
During the legal purge in Norway after World War II, not much public attention was devoted to the conditions in prisoner-of-war camps.
In an interview in the newspaper Aftenposten on November 16, 2012, Christie said, "In the years following the war and occupation, it was painful and difficult to accept the fact that Norwegians could, and can, perform horrific acts like this.
Later, in 1984, Cveja Jovanović wrote the book Bekstva u slobodu: iz nacističkih logora smrti u Norveškoj (Escape to Freedom: From Nazi Death Camps in Norway).
