This is a nice place
Flukt - in memory of those who escaped
2017
Introduction
The project is a work initiated by the artist Victor Lind in honour of the rescue mission called ‘Carl Fredriksens Transport’ during WW II.
The park was realised in collaboration with Snøhetta and Per Boym in 2013 and is located by the former site of Rolf Syversen's plant nursery at Hekkveien, Carl Berners Plass, in Oslo. The park is a memorial to the rescue mission, the people who fled for their lives and for the generations to follow. Carl Fredriksen referred to the original name of King Haakon, - Carl, the son of Fredrik.
Technical details
Photos: Pål Laukli
Snøhetta was responsible for developing the plan and construction details for the realisation of the project. Besides the art pieces, the main feature of the park is the steel-edged pathway with a red gravel paving, carefully placed in the sloping terrain towards the viewpoint at the upper plateau. From the viewpoint you will see the site of the former plant nursery and you will also have a view towards the city. The viewing plateau has an eight-pointed star made from larvikite, with inscriptions describing the rescue mission. The viewpoint also features a binocular. There is a smaller star in a cherry grove further down the path. The short inscription by the Norwegian writer Wergeland says: ‘Freedom has to be welcoming’.
Snøhetta was also responsible for the design of the temporary outdoor photo exhibition “Flukt” (English title: ‘Escape’). In this exhibition you met some of the persons (and their descendants) who escaped the Nazis in Norway’s largest rescue mission during the winter of 1942–43, when Carl Fredriksens Transport saved more than 1000 persecuted people, half of them Jewish. Led by a small group of brave individuals, the rescue mission transported up to forty people each night over a period of six weeks by collecting them at Syversen’s plant nursery, hiding them on the back of trucks and driving the long way from Oslo to freedom across the Swedish border.
The park opened in the autumn of 2013, and the photo exhibition opened in spring 2017.
Experience the exhibition and the story at http://fintsted.no