Falstad concentration camp
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Falstad concentration camp was a prison camp in Levanger, Norway, used mostly for political prisoners from Nazi-occupied territories. Originally built as a government boarding school in 1921, it was put to use by the SS and renamed SS-Strafgefangenenlager Falstad in August 1941. The camp was liberated in May 1945, after which it was used as a prison and work camp by the Norwegian authorities for accused and convicted traitors. Today it is a museum and research center on human rights in general and political prisoners in particular.
The Gestapo ran the camp primarily as a facility for political prisoners from German-occupied areas. Altogether people of 13 nationalities were imprisoned at Falstad. Most were from Norway, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Denmark, and Poland. Although a few remained in the camp for longer periods, most were quickly sent to camps in Germany or 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 eight 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 "Grayleg" (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. Efforts to find, exhume, identify, and bury the victims—at least 202 were murdered—are ongoing (as of February 2007).
Much research remains to be done to uncover the specifics and nature of Nazi atrocities committed at Falstad.
