In 2022, the Jewish Museum of Trondheim interviewed 20 Jewish people born in Trondheim in the period of 1944 to 1952. “Take Me Back” was the working title of this project, and also the summary of what we wanted the interviewees to do: take us back to their childhood and tell us about their memories and experiences growing up. The result was around 40 hours of stories, anecdotes, reflections and memories. In this exhibition, we wish to present a curated selection of this rich material.

Most of the informants are children of Jews who escaped to Sweden during the Second world war. A couple of the informants are children of survivors from Auschwitz. What all these parents had in common was that they had lost many of their friends and family in the Holocaust, and that they were returning to a place that was not like they left it. In the middle of this grief, they were supposed to start life again and raise a new generation of Jews in a society that, in many ways, had not reconciled with its antisemitism.

The Jewish children that grew up in the postwar period saw that the grief of the past lived side-by-side with the optimism for the future. They also had to decide what part of the Jewish traditions they themselves were going to bring with them. Through personal accounts, we get a unique insight into how Jewish life in Trondheim evolved in the decades after the war. We also get a glimpse of what it was like to grow up in the 1950s and 60s.

The informants’ stories and memories are at the forefront of this exhibition. They are supported by archival material from the museum. In the interviews, memories are processed through the wisdom and experience of adults. In some cases, this reflects as nostalgia. In other cases, these memories are hard and painful. The goal has been to convey the diversity in the experiences, while at the same time highlighting the similarities between them.

Take Me Back is a digital exhibition consisting of video clips, pictures, sound and text. Visitors can navigate by touching the screen.

Cheider in the synagogue, 1956. Belongs to the Jewish Museum Trondheim.

This exhibition would not have been possible without the informants, who not only allowed us to interview them, but also let us show these clips to the public. We owe them a large thank you!

Take me back was developed by the Jewish Museum of Trondheim, in cooperation with our partners:

Architect: Stein Adler Bernhoft

IT-solution: Exigo AS

Video edit and text: Allsidig design AS

Build: Byåsen Trevare AS

Print: Fagtrykk AS

Thanks to Henriette Kahn, Torunn Herje, Ruth Paltiel and Ralph Buchmann for sparring and feedback in the process of development.

The project manager is Agnete Eilertsen, Curator at the Jewish Museum of Trondheim.

The exhibition was developed with funds from the Arts Council Norway and the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, specifically through the Action Plan against Antisemitism.