The Jewish Society of Trondheim, Jewish Museum Trondheim, and the Jewish Cultural Festival Trondheim invite everyone to our annual memory ceremony of the November Pogrom in Germany, 1938.

We will host a talk and panel discussion regarding the Holocaust Centre's newest survey on attitudes toward Jews and Muslims in Norway (2024). The speakers are Claudia Lenz and Jan Heiret. Read more about them further down in this text.

Students from Trondheim International School will do the memorial speech.

On the night between 9 and 10 November, 1938, the Nazis enacted a large scale action against the Jews in Germany and Austria. Around 1200 synagogues were set on fire, plundered and vandalized. Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed. Everywhere, there was broken glass on streets and pavements, giving rise to the name "Kristallnacht" (the Crystal Night). The rage was in particular organized and initiated by the SA and the SS. 30 000 Jews, mainly men, were arrested. The November Pogrom marked a change, and intensification, in Nazi anti-Jewish policy that would culminate in the industrial mass murder - the Holocaust.

Attitude surveys i 2024 - A warning!
In 2024, the Holocaust Centre in Oslo performed yet another survey measuring the Norwegian population's attitudes toward Jews and Muslims. The survey found that antisemitic attitudes are on the rise, for the first time since these surveys began back in 2011.

A Nazi offices vandalizes a Jewish business during the November Pogrom, 1938. Likely in Fürth, near Nüremberg. (Wikimedia Commons)

Jan Heiret became the new director of the Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies on the 12th of January 2024. He is 61 and has a versatile leadership background. Among other things, we was a leader in the Institute for archeology, history, culture and religious studies in the University of Bergen. Heiret has also had many leadership positions and worked as a researcher at the Rokkan Centre.

Claudia Lenz is a professor of social studies at the MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society. She specializes in the prevention of racism and antisemitism. Claudia got her Ph.D from the University og Hamburg in 2002. Among other things, her relevant research areas are Historical Consciousness, Memory Culture and History Politics related to World War II and the Holocaust in
Scandinavia. She is also engaged in promoting democratic values in the school system through the DEMBRA-program.