The Veidal Prison Camp ( no, Veidal fangeleir, german: Gefangenenlager Veidal Kvænangen) was established in

Kvænangen Kvænangen ( sme, Návuotna; fkv, Naavuono) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Burfjord. The European route E6 highway goes through the municipality and ove ...

in August 1942 by the German occupation authorities. The prison camp was a subunit of the Grini Prison Camp and, together with the Badderen Prison Camp, was created to erect

snow fence A snow fence, similar to a sand fence, is a barrier that forces windblown, drifting snow to accumulate in a desired place. They are primarily employed to minimize the amount of snowdrift on roadways and railways. Farmers and ranchers use snow fe ...

s and build

snow shed Avalanche control or avalanche defense activities reduce the hazard avalanches pose to human life, activity, and property.Kvænangsfjellet Kvænangsfjellet ( fkv, Naavuononvaara) is a line of mountains along the border of the municipalities of Kvænangen and Nordreisa in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The European route E6 highway traverses the mountains through a mountain pass ...

. Four hundred prisoners from the Grini camp were sent to Kvænangsfjellet to assist Norwegian civilian laborers with the construction. The prisoners remained on the mountain for three months, from August 14, 1942 to November 11, 1942. The construction work for the snow sheds and snow fences was led by

Organisation Todt Organisation Todt (OT; ) was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior Nazi. The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering projec ...

, and the camp was guarded by the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...

. The prisoners that were sent from Grini to the Veidal camp to work on the snow sheds included the artist Per Krohg and the architect

Odd Nansen Odd Nansen (6 December 1901 – 27 June 1973) was a Norwegian architect, writer, and humanitarian. He is credited with being a co-founder of UNICEF and for his humanitarian efforts on behalf of Jews in the early years of World War II. Biogr ...

.Forty, George. 2002. ''Fortress Europe: Hitler's Atlantic Wall''. Hersham, UK: Ian Allan, p. 33 Both of them wrote about their time on Kvænangsfjellet: Per Krohg in ''Memoarer – minner og meninger'' (Memoirs: Memories and Opinions; 1966) and Odd Nansen in ''Fra dag til dag'' (Day after Day; vol. 2, 1946).

References

External links

North Troms History Club. Excursion to prisoner of war camps at the mountain Kvænangsfjellet and the isthmus Baddereidet. Photo albums.
{{Coord, 69.8964, 21.6071, type:landmark_region:NO-34, display=title World War II prisoner of war camps in Norway Norway in World War II Buildings and structures in Troms og Finnmark Prisons in Norway History of Troms og Finnmark