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Norwegian police apologize for sending Jews to Nazi death camp

27 November 2012 00:40 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Norwegian police chief Odd Reidar Humlegaard made an official apology on Monday for the police involvement in deporting more than 500 Jewish Norwegians during the Second World War, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

Monday marked the 70th anniversary of the historic event in which 532 Jewish residents were arrested and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp on board the German ship SS Donau.

Speaking to the Norwegian-language newspaper Dagsavisen, Humlegaard said that he wants to apologize on behalf of the Norwegian Police and those who were involved with the deportation operation, in which more than 300 Norweigan policemen took part.

Earlier this year, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg issued a formal apology for the deportation on behalf of the Norwegian government.

The Norwegian police collaboration with the Nazi occupiers in the dark early morning 70 years ago was seen by many in Norway as a "national shame."

Norway was invaded by German Nazi forces on April 9, 1940 and remained occupied until May 1945 when Germans were defeated. Out of about 770 Jewish Norwegians or Jewish refugees deported from the occupied Norway, only a few dozen survived and returned to Norway after the war.

Monday's police apology was well received by the Jewish community in Oslo.

Ervin Kohn, head of the Jewish organization "Mosaic Religious Community", said that it was fine for the Norwegians to come up with an apology for what happened in 1942.