War Crimes

I visited Tromso in Arctic Norway with The Principal in March 2015. We had one fabulous day driving around the Lyngen Alps. As we drove back to Tromso I took a photo that led me to learn about the terrible deeds of the Second World War in Nazi-occupied Norway and in particular the fate of Russian Prisoners of War. 

I wrote this up in some detail on my website and said that one day I would go to the National Archives in Kew to look at the War Crimes documentation on the infamous - amongst Russian POWs - Mallnitz 'death camp'. 

I finally did this today. It was fascinating and harrowing in equal measure. And the whole 'archive trip' was pretty amazing. 

This photo is a memo from one of the War Crimes investigation teams trying to track down the battalion of the German 6th Mountain Division that meted out terrible summary executions of Russian POWs worked to starvation and then left to starve at Mallnitz. I was struck by the plaintive handwritten note at the bottom saying, 'We are already overloaded with work [.] Cannot go to Denmark.'  (it was thought some of the officers and NCOs had been transferred to Denmark before the end of the war - 'the capitulation' as it is referred to in the documents here. )