The first director, Nina Hasvold (née Hackel), was recruited by Norwegian psychiatrist Nic Waal after they had become acquainted in Berlin while attending the Kinderseminar (Seminar on Children) run by Wilhelm Reich. Nansenhjelpen board member Sigrid Helliesen Lund was also active in establishing the home.
The first inhabitants of the home were Jewish refugees from Vienna (known as Wienerbarna, "the Vienna children"), who had arrived in June 1938 on the pretext of a summer vacation with the Norwegian Jewish community. After some time at the Jewish community's cabin at Skui in Bærum and in foster care, they moved into rented facilities in Industrigaten and finally into a building the Jewish community had acquired at Holbergsgate 21 in Oslo.
Through the work of recently arrived psychiatrist Leo Eitinger and Nina Lustig (who was later detained and deported, and immediately murdered in Auschwitz) from Brno, Nansenhjelpen applied on humanitarian grounds to admit 100 Czech Jewish children who otherwise faced a grim future under the Nazi regime. The ministry of justice only reluctantly approved the application for a few (among them the noted psychiatrist Berthold Grünfeld), on the grounds that it would be "difficult to get rid of them."
When Norway was occupied by Nazi Germany, conditions progressively worsened for the Norwegian Jewish community in general and also for the inhabitants of the Jewish children's home. Though Sigrid Helliesen Lund had the foresight to burn the entire list of Czech Jewish refugees on April 9, 1940, German and Quisling authorities eventually caught up with the home.
Seven children were sent back to their families in Austria; all of these perished in the Holocaust. In addition, one boy who moved out of the home in October 1942 was murdered in Auschwitz.
By the time the Nazi authorities ordered the detention and deportation of all Jews in Norway in November 1942, there were nine boys and five girls in the home. The staff at the home, individuals affiliated with Nansenhjelpen, and other helpful people with contacts within the generally unhelpful Norwegian resistance movement planned, improvised, and successfully carried out a complicated and daring escape. All the children in the home were able to evade capture and found their way to Sweden.
All 14 children survived the Holocaust and subsequently found new homes in Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In the summer of 2007, all were still alive.
Of those who participated in the rescue effort, seven were honored as being among the Righteous among the Nations through Yad Vashem in 2006:
- Caroline (Nic) Waal, who orchestrated the escape, relying on her personal network of friends and family.
- Nina Hasvold, the director of the orphanage.
- Gerda Tanberg, who hid the children in her second floor apartment in Ullern.
- Martin Solvang, a taxi driver who was very active in the underground railroad to Sweden, and drove the children to Elverum.
- Ola Rauken, a grenselos ("border pilot"), who took the children into his farm and walked them 17 kilometers toward the border.
- Ola Breisjøberget, who took them across the border.
- Sigrid Helliesen Lund, a member of Sivorg who dedicated herself from the outset to saving the children's lives, planning the escape and arranging for provisions.
See Norwegian Righteous Among the Nations for a complete list of those Norwegians recognized.
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NORWAY: JEWS, KASHRUTH & ANTISEMITISM:
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