Press Release

No. 99 /97
Oslo, 23 June 1997

A Moral Responsibility to Clarify and Settle the Terrible Crimes against the Jewish People

• The losses of the Jewish population during World War II cannot be limited to an estimation of material sacrifice, Norwegian Foreign Minister Bjørn Tore Godal said in a comment to the presentation on a report on the fate of Jewish property confiscated by the Quisling Nazi regime in Norway during German occupation.
• It is the moral responsibility of my generation to see to it that the terrible crimes commited against the Jewish people during World War II are fully clarified and settled.
• During the German occupation the Jewish community in Norway was the victims of the crime of genocide. This places the Jews in a particular situation among the many Norwegian victims of nazism. The economic measures which were carried out against the Jews in Norway can only be understood properly in this broad context.
• The Norwegian government will approach the follow-up of the report from the Skarpnes Committee in this broad context.

Oslo, 23 June 1997.