With our project “scharte” we, Mari Lassen-Bergsten Kamsvaag and Nicholas Zöckler, were dealing with the death of six Norwegian students that were executed by the Wehrmacht during WWII. There is very little information left about these young people to be remembered by and therefore we ask about the decay of memories as well as of the actual corpses.

BACKGROUND

After the Norwegian Royal Family and Nygaardsvold together with his ministers went into exile to England six students that were said to be communists decided to join British forces and fight Nazi Germany. On their way to Churchill and his army they were captured by German soldiers and brought in front of a court that sentenced them to death. Together with a doctor and a priest the Wehrmacht took them to Håøya where they all walked into the woods before they came to a place where they had to stand in a row with their backs towards their executioners next to the already shuffled graves, blindfolded. However, one of them decided to face the shooters and turned around looking into the shooters eyes. After the priest discharged his duties the six were killed, pronounced dead by the doctor and buried. Though before the soldiers of the Wehrmacht put lime stone powder on the corpses so the flesh would dissolve quicker. 

All this information were passed on by mouth so their validity is questionable. Moreover, the corpses have not yet been found. 

THE PROJECT

As visitors of Håøya walk through the forest they can stumble upon a glass pillar cut into the soil hidden on the island. During the working process it became clear to us that we do not want to directly create graves for the young students and therefore give an answer to the question of their whereabout. It was much more important for us to materialize the problem of the uncertainty of the story. How can we stop the memory falling apart without having anything physical to go on? How can we understand the cruelty that happend on an island where children play nowadays? Why have these six persons almost dissappeared from History? We decided to start digging for the process itself and show the physical action, to not hide it. And then make a clear cut in the midst of time that starts to sorround the story to offer the people a clear view on the past. 

Project by Mari Lassen-Bergsten Kamsvaag and Nicholas Zöckler

Tutored by Serge von Arx, Kjartan Fønstelien and Siri Langdalen

Håøya, 2015

The Norwegian Theatre Academy, Høgskolen i Østfold

photo 1 by Inga Aleknaviciute, photo 2 by Jan Hajdelak, photo 3-6 by Mari LB Kamsvaag