The presentation of the book «70 years of peace by a border, 1944 — 2014»

• 05.10.2015
• 2370

On October 2, 2015 Olaug Bye Gamnes, the author of the book «70 years of peace by a border, 1944 — 2014», Bjoerg Dørmænen, Head of Office at School in Jarfjord and Britt-Åse Mortensen, the project assistant visited Murmansk State Humanities University to commemorate the significant date in Russian-Norwegian history. They recollected some touching and tremendous stories of human’s courage and strength, especially the stories about partisan detachments and soldiers of resistance. Britt-Åse Mortensen also emphasized that relations between Norway and Russia have been always friendly and warm in spite of the foreign politics.

Olaug Bye Gamnes describes the key events of war in her book, some facts of 1994 Petsamo-Kirkenes operation, when during the violent struggle the Soviet Troops liberated the Kola Peninsula and the border areas of Norway from Hitler’s Army. The price of the victory was too high: more than 13,9 thousand soldiers were killed or wounded, others died in concentration camps. The author of the book told her own story and the stories of some families that faced with the horrors of WWII itself.

Norwegian Liberation Day is a very important day in both Russian and Norwegian history. Every year special memorable arrangements for veterans are organized: visits to the burial sites, former war prisoners’ camps and places of fighting. Both Russian and Norwegian veterans met together to make their voices heard in memory of the victims of WWII. Most of the survivors spoke publicly about terrible days of occupation they will never be able to forget.

Olaug Bye Gamnes claimed that liberation was the most decisive step in WWII history due to the feat of Red Army. She also stressed that keeping up the peace, justice and human rights is on primary importance now.