Julius Paltiel, another Norwegian Jew as well as Steinmann survived the stay in Auschwitz, together with three others they would walk the death march together from Auschwitz. Although he survived, like so many other survivors, his family did not. When Paltiel finally came home to Trondheim in June of 1945, he returned home all alone. Julius was arrested and sent to Falstad Camp in Nord-Trøndelag,-this camp was created by the German Security Police, the SS to hold political prisoners. Among the Germans it would be called Strafgefangenlager Falstad. It was ready for operation in 1941, and in 1942 they would send about 50 Jews here; in 1942, at the age of eighteen. From here, Julius Paltiel would be sent to Auschwitz. Falstad was one of the most …show more content…
But luck is not a good word to use to describe anything related to the Holocaust. Julius Paltiel says it is luck, and an enormous willpower to survive, this got him through those three years in the camps. After a long journey home in June 195 Paltiel came home to find the family apartment and business confiscated by the authorities, his family was all gone, and he was on his own. Later on in his life, when Paltiel talked about this period in his life and the aftermath, he state that he wanted to just disappear into a big black hole, but he had no choice but to live on. It was the only way to get through this, was to pull himself together and life his life. He got a business running, and got involved in sports. He passed away 28 June, …show more content…
In many ways it was like their story did not exist, like it did not matter. A country simply choose not to speak of it, it´s easier to ignore the facts we do not like, then addressing the ones we don´t like. For many years it have been difficult for the norwegian population to address this issue of guilt, we may not have murdered these individuals and their families, but in many ways it seemed like we did little to stop it, and even less when it came to the end of the war, and time for trials. For those betrayed our country, those who committed treason would be killed for their their crimes, we executed many for their crimes after World War II, there was more then enough blame to go around, for treason, conspiracy to commit treason, crimes of torture, etc etc. But not once did we address the atrocities that a minority of our people had gone through, and they were Norwegian, just like us right? In some ways it seems to be a case of us-them mentality, and if that is not the case. We just simply ignored them in all of this, like what happened to the Jews just did not matter to us. And you would almost believe that the crimes committed against an entire religious group would be of priority. Only problem is, it was not. And it would take decades before the government gave an official apology. This apology was