Nazi mansion turned around

OSLO — A sprawling mansion used by Norwegian Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling during World War II opened this week as a center to oppose the intolerance, hatred and treachery he represented.

The Oslo mansion, called Villa Grande, now houses the Center for Studies of Holocaust and Religious Minorities in Norway. Its displays and research will focus on the Nazi-led genocide of millions of Jews and on the persecution of other minorities.

“There is huge symbolism here,” center Director Odd-Bjoern Fures said at the opening ceremony Tuesday.

The residence once represented “a time of Norwegian social collapse,” Mr. Fures said. “Now, that is turned 180 degrees.”

Almost 60 years after Quisling was executed by Norway for setting up a puppet government that collaborated with German occupation forces, his name remains listed in dictionaries as a synonym for traitor.

When German troops invaded Norway in 1940, Quisling proclaimed himself “minister president,” and moved into Villa Grande with his wife in 1941.

Under the Quisling years, 771 of Norway’s prewar community of 2,100 Jews died in the Holocaust, and much of their property was stolen.

Bjoern Egge, a Norwegian soldier during the invasion, was with some of them during his three years as a prisoner of war in Sachsenhausen, Germany. It was his idea to turn Villa Grande into a Holocaust center.

“I shared the fate of the Jews at Sachsenhausen, and I saw them disappear into the gas chambers,” said the 88-year-old retired general.

In 2000, the Norwegian government promised to donate Quisling’s 43,000-square-foot house and surrounding 5-acre estate to the center.

It was part of a 1999 package adopted by parliament as compensation for Norwegian Jews. The settlement of $71 million compensates Jewish families for property stolen by the Nazis and to fund community projects, such as the center.

The once-grand mansion was in poor condition after decades of various uses, including as housing for Allied troops for 18 months after the war. It was restored over several years.

In a bunker of narrow, arched tunnels that Quisling had built under the house, a Nazi eagle and the words “Heil Hitler” remain painted on the white wall. Someone, perhaps an Allied soldier, crossed them out with black paint.

The exhibition itself is striking. Upon entering, a grainy, black-and-white photograph of the German ship SS Donau is shown on Nov. 26, 1942, at a snowy Oslo wharf. Aboard were 332 Norwegian Jews bound for death camps.

The opening of the center is being marked with concerts, dance, art exhibitions and other events until tomorrow.