Scoutmaster trip to Eurpoe 2007

Saturday, September 1, 2007

I walked off the MS Trollfjord onto the pier in Trondheim around 9:00 a.m., and started the long walk to my hostel. From the harbor it is probably about two miles, about half of that is up steep hills. The Trondheim hostel is part of Hostelling International, as opposed to being a Backpackers hostel, or an independent hostel. I got a four-person room, but only three of the beds were taken. The hostel fee includes breakfast, but Internet access is not included. Sandra’s Backpackers Hostel in Thurso, Scotland, and Trondheim Hostel in Norway have included breakfast. In London, both the St. Paul’s Hostel and the Palmer House Hostel included breakfast. None of the others included breakfast in the fee. When I traveled through Europe in the past, all of the hostels included breakfast, and some offered other meals at very reasonable rates. Things have changed.

After unpacking and a quick shower, I headed back down the hills to the center of town where, to my delight, the weekly farmer’s market was in full swing. So I just walked from stall to stall sampling all kinds of Norwegian treats. I especially liked many local cheeses, with the exception of their brown cheese that gets its color from being cooked for 14 hours. Most cheese here is very mild, almost sweetly flavored. Jahrlsburg is the Norwegian cheese that we have back home. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you the names of the other cheeses I sampled. Several stalls served Norwegian pancakes, cold with sugar, or jam. However, among the special foods available, that I did not sample, were reindeer and moose. Smoked fish was not offered I guess because this was a farmer’s market.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

The Nidaros Cathedral built over the tomb of St. Olav dominates Trondheim. St. Olav is credited with bringing Christianity to Norway. The building of the cathedral started in 1070, and completed in 1300, has gone through major restorations several times. It was the seat of the Archbishop of Norway, and after the reformation in 1537, the cathedral became the seat of one of the bishops of Norway. I visited the cathedral and the Archbishop’s Palace, and several associated museums. I got to see the royal crowns, scepters, orbs, and royal jewels that are housed in a vault beneath the Archbishop’s Palace.

The best part of my day was visiting the Jewish Synagogue and Museum, which to my good fortune, is only open Sunday’s. When I got to the gate, an attendant explained that there was a special conference of Scandinavian Jewish women, I guess like our Haddasah, and that I would not be able to see the place. We chatted a bit. I told him I was from America, and would not have a chance to come back, and that I was on the Jewish Committee for Scouting. Well, he softened and said he would take me into the Synagogue and Museum. The women were having lunch when I came into the building. As unobtrusively as possible, we walked into the Synagogue; it’s an Orthodox Synagogue with the bimah in the front, and an upper balcony for women. About 140 Jews live in Trondheim, and, in total, about 1,000 Jews live in Norway. Despite the small Jewish population, the Synagogue was quite beautiful and the building and grounds well maintained.

I learned that the Norwegian constitution had prohibited Jews from settling in the country, and that in 1851, the constitution was amended to allow Jews to enter. During the Second World War, Norway was occupied by Germany, and the tiny Jewish population suffered greatly. The museum has two sections. The first deals with the history of Jewish life in Trondheim, and the second deals with the effect of the holocaust in Trondheim. Both exhibits are very well done. The stark facts are that in 1942, there were 260 Jews living in the area around Trondheim; 130 died in Auschwitz. In total, 767 Jews were deported from Norway; only 29 returned in 1945. I guess other Jews emigrated to Israel or to America after the war, and surely others must have returned later, or else how could the current population be what it is. Some Norwegian Jews, like the entire Danish Jewish population, were able to escape to Sweden. During the Second World War, Sweden maintained its neutrality, but was a safe haven for several thousand European Jews who were lucky enough to get there. The boat lift of the entire Danish Jewish population in small fishing boats is one of the most amazing stories of the war.

Norway was part of a confederation of Scandinavian countries under Denmark, and later under Sweden. However, it has maintained its own King even while under the overall rule of other countries. Norway only became fully independent in 1905. Today, the King of Norway is also the head of the Norwegian Church. While other religions are welcome, the state religion gets tax dollars, and is part of the public school education program.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

This morning, I boarded the train to Oslo, Norway’s capital. The trip involved changing trains twice, and took more than seven hours. On the last leg of the journey, I met a lovely young Australian named, Gillian, and she and I had a delightful time talking about our travels and our home countries. She is chiropractics and plans to work in Norway. People at the various hostels and campgrounds all seem to have interesting stories about their travels. Many Australian, British and German travelers have stayed at the hostels, and surprisingly, some Americans too. Most of the people traveling are on holiday, but quite a few seem to have jobs lined up. A young lady from Alaska, told me about having just finished traveling across Russia on the Orient Express. It took her two weeks to complete the trip as she got off twice. She had a sleeping compartment that she shared with three other people, and she had to stock up and bring her own food and bottled water because they don’t have a restaurant car on the train. People in the hostels range in age from the early 20’s to well into their retirement years like me. Quite a few married and unmarried couples on holiday use the hostels too.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Oslo has some fine things to see, and it’s an easy city to get around. Like many cities, Oslo has passes for sale that let you travel on subways, ferries, busses, and trams all day. One of the passes offers admission to most of the museums and other attractions. I visited the Fortress overlooking the city where the Resistance Museum has exhibits on what people did during the German occupation. I learned a few things. The Royal family and most of the leaders managed too just barely escape to England as the country was overrun, and perhaps, most important, almost the entire merchant fleet escaped. Norway’s merchant fleet was large and aided in shipping war supplies for the allies throughout the war. Half the fleet survived the onslaught of U-boats. A fascist party came into existence about eight years before Norway was over run. A fellow named Vidkun Quisling, was the founder and the Nazis installed him as the puppet head of Norway after occupying the country. Both Quisling and the right-wing police did the dirty work for the Germans.

The most visited place in Oslo is Vigeland Park. An artist, Gustav Vigeland, gave the city hundreds of stone statues and designed the layout in the park for them. The statues are all naked people! Generally the statues are groups of people, men, women, and children, in all kinds of poses. For example, there’s a statue of boys and girls supporting trees on the corners of fountains, there’s a statue of perhaps twenty young children all bunched up in a tangle of arms and legs and bodies, and leading up the side of a staircase there’s a statue of three or four young boys wrestling, and another of three girls holding up a boy. A monolith in the center of a large plaza has hundreds of bodies all up and down the pillar. Water fountains with statues of human figures surrounding the pools that the fountains spill into, dot the plaza. It’s just an amazing sight to behold, and while all the figures are naked, there is really nothing erotic. I guess this is the Scandinavian way of looking at the world in natural terms.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

I went to Bygdoy, an island on the other side of the Oslo fjord. There’s a ferry from the Oslo city pier to Bygdoy where people can see the pride of Norwegian seamanship. There are three exhibitions, where I learned some amazing facts. The first of the exhibitions is dedicated to the Arctic and Antarctic explorers. The Fram, a wooden combination sail and steam ship of the late 1800’s hold the record for traveling the farthest North and the farthest South. Its crew attempted to reach the North Pole, but had to turn around. The design of the ship’s hull, sort of egg shaped, prevented ice from sticking. This allowed the ship to winter in the frozen waters without being broken into splinters. Another ship on display named the Gjoa actually made the Northwest Passage in the early 1900’s. Europeans since Columbus had sought a way from Europe to the Pacific by sailing through North America. A Norwegian named Amundsen did it in the Gjoa. It took two years, but he made it to San Francisco. The ship returned to Norway only a short time ago. It had been on display somewhere in the bay area, but I never knew about it.

Another display was dedicated to the famous Norwegian explorer, Thor Heyerdahl, who among his many incredible exploits sailed a papyrus boat, the Ra II, from the coast of Africa to the Caribbean in 1970 to prove that ancient people could have done it. His theory was that people from the Middle East may have reached the Americas and brought with them ideas about building pyramids. Heyerdahl also sailed from the west coast of South America to an island near Tahiti, Raorora, in 1947, on a raft, dubbed the Kon Tiki! There are actually black and white movies that I saw of the expedition. Eight people from eight countries made this journey to show that it was also possible that people from South America and Polynesia interacted thousands of years ago. Heyerdahl has become one of my heroes. Not only did he explore, but he actually might be considered an early environmentalist. In some ways, he reminds me of the French oceanographer, Jacques Cousteau.

And finally, the Norwegian story of the sea would be incomplete without Viking ships. The vessels I saw are from the 1st century. They are enormous ships, and the workmanship is truly remarkable considering the tools available at the time. Some important Viking nobles were buried with their ships when they died, and the ones on display are such ships. They are remarkably well preserved. Imagine sailing the North Atlantic without a compass as the Vikings did, and imagine sailing across the Pacific without a compass as the Polynesians did. Guided by stars, currents, the sun and the habits of birds, fish and whales allowed people to make journeys of thousands of miles.

Finally, I visited the Holocaust Center of Oslo; it’s quite some distance from the city center, and it’s only a year old. The center is in the former mansion of Vidkun Quisling, the Nazi collaborator. As you might expect, the focus is on the experience of the small Norwegian Jewish community, but an important part of the story is about the pseudoscientific rationale for what took place. In the 1920’s, the concepts of race theory gained popularity in Europe and in America too. The idea was that different human races have genetically based differences that affect things like intelligence, physical abilities, and body features. Of course, we know this is nonsense, but it was widely taught, and the idea of “racial purity” was one of Hitler’s obsessions. Jews and Roma (Gypsies), as well as Slavic, and black people were all considered much lower on the evolutionary scale than the German “Aryan Race.” In Hitler’s view of the future, some of these lower races, like the Jews, were to be exterminated, and others were to be kept around to serve as slaves.

Quisling bought these ideas “hook, line and sinker.” Interestingly, the exhibit claims that the historical mistrust of Jews in Western Europe and Eastern Europe differed. In Eastern Europe, like Poland and Russia, Jews were quite numerous, and the history of pogroms against Jews dates back into the Middle Ages. In the West, like Scandinavia and England, there were few Jews, for the most part, and people generally mistrusted them because they had strange customs. The shame of Norway is that 20,000 people eagerly adopted the Nazi creed. In fact, they joined the German Army and fought for Germany mostly on the Russian front. What and amazing story this is.

Philip Sternberg
Scoutmaster, Troop 1131