Blood Road Museum

Blood Road Museum - darkometer rating : 4 - A small museum about the construction of a vital road in northern Norway during the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany . The construction work was done by forced labour namely by the inmates from nearby POW camps. Most of these prisoners had come from Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union . The museum is part of a larger folk museum complex, which unfortunately is not particularly well geared towards foreign visitors. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: The Blood Road Museum, or "Blodveimuseet" in Norwegian (sometimes also "Blodvegenmuseet"), commemorates the plight of the thousands of POWs who during the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany in WWII were used for hard labour, namely for the construction of roads and railway lines in the Nordland region and beyond. At that time, road conditions in the north of the country were still very bad, and the railroad hadn't even reached these northern parts at all (it ended much further south in Mosjøen). The Nazis' demand for supplies for their troops in the far north (see esp. Kirkenes ) or for the transport of raw materials from or via Norway (e.g. iron ore from Sweden via Narvik , or nickel from Finland) to Germany could not be met by the existing networks. Nor was sea transport an good alternative option, as it was too risky, given the British Navy presence in the Atlantic and North Sea. So it was decided to extend the road and rail network all the way up to Kirkenes within four to six years, beginning in 1942. It never got that far, though.