In the Norddalen

On my recent trip up the Norrdalen to find Mallnitz POW camp from the IIWW in Arctic Norway I took a number of photos of the site of the camp.

When I returned I fiddled about with one of these and a photo taken in June 1945 by Bjorn Winsnes, overlaying the earlier one over the later one, using the mountains in both as a framework.

The Winsnes photo is the , at that time, US war crime investigation team that drove down from Tromso along with local German officers and Norwegian soldiers and civilians.

I'm not sure if this methodology is either Blipworthy or methodologically sound but it brought the past and present together for me in what seemed an interesting way.

For example, the Winsnes photos have very little landscape context or it is blown out as he focussed on the people in the shot. I had no idea that the camp was in such a remote and wild setting at 1000ft and many miles from the nearest hamlet or village.