"Soviet War Prisoners in Norway in 1941-1945" exhibition opens in Ufa

UFA, 7 June 2017. /Bashinform News Agency, Leila Aralbaeva/. On June 7, "Soviet Prisoners of War in Norway in 1941-1945" exhibition dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Northern Norway by units of the Red Army opens in Ufa.

The exhibition was prepared with the assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture of Norway and is a part of the research project exhibition "Painful Heritage" on identifying Soviet victims. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 100 000 prisoners were sent to the occupied Norway, about 13 700 of them were killed there. Detention conditions of prisoners of war in the German camps were appalling, the Norwegian population supported prisoners as they could, secretly handing them food and clothing.

This exhibition tells about the hardest conditions of life for Soviet prisoners of war in German concentration camps in Norway. But it also narrates about human dignity, human relations, about friendship between the Norwegian civilian population and Soviet prisoners of war, about the contacts established in concentration camps, sometimes under the threat of severe punishment.