Falstad concentration camp
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Falstad concentration camp was a prison camp in Levanger, Norway, used mostly for political prisoners within Nazi-occupied territories. Originally built as a government boarding school in 1921, the SS put it to their use as SS-Strafgefangenenlager Falstad in August of 1941. It was liberated in May of 1945, after which it was used as a prison and work camp by the Norwegian authorities for accused and convicted traitors after the war. Today it is a museum and research center on human rights in general and political prisoners in particular.
The camp was run by the Gestapo mostly as a facility for political prisoners from various occupied areas. Altogether members of 13 different nationalities were imprisoned at Falstad. Most of these were from the Norway, Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Denmark, and Poland. Although a few remained in the camp for longer periods of time, most were sent on to camps in Germany, Poland, or to the main concentration camp in Norway, Grini.
The camp was also used as a transit camp for deportation of Norwegian Jews to Auschwitz. At least 8 Jews were murdered at Falstad.
The main characteristic of the camp was forced, hard, and largely meaningless labor. Degradations and abuse were commonplace, particularly under the administration of SS-Hauptscharführer Gogol and Hans Lambrecht, a prison guard known among the prisoners as "Greyleg" (Gråbein).
On October 6, 1942 the Nazi authorities imposed martial law on sections of central Norway, and at least 170 non-Norwegian prisoners and 34 Norwegian political prisoners were executed in the forest outside Falstad. There are ongoing efforts to find, exhume, identify, and bury victims, and the total is at least 202 dead.
Much research remains in uncovering the specifics about the nature of and atrocities committed at Falstad.
