«The Blood Road» was given its name to describe the horrible events of four construction projects in the making of the Norwegian National Road 50 (R-50): the mountain crossing of Korgfjellet in Helgeland; the road from Rognan to Langset in Salten; winterproofing of an 18 km stretch between Karasjok in Finnmark and Karigasniemi in Finland; and the road by Beisfjord in Ofoten. These were the projects given the highest priority by Reichskommissar Josef Terboven, when he assigned the Yugoslavian prisoners of war the Nazi regime had brought to Norway. These four sites had considerable strategic importance, and all were managed by the construction division of the SS.
The origins of the name stem partly from an incident in Botn in Saltdal, and partly from Sigurd Evensmo’s 1955 motion picture (by the same name) depicting the building of the road over Korgfjellet.
On 14. July 1943, a prisoner by the name of Milos Banjac was shot and killed in Botn, and history has it that his brother painted a cross with his blood nearby, on the side of the mountain road. Today, the site of the cross has been marked with a memorial. Not far away, you can find the Yugoslavian war cemetery, where the majority of the prisoners who were killed in Northern Norway are buried.
KARASJOK
400 of the prisoners who arrived in Bergen on the cargo ship Gotha on 14. June 1942 were sent to Karasjok. During the journey north, 26 of them were shot and killed in Tromsø, and only 374 prisoners arrived in the Karasjok camp a little over a month later, on 22. July. The camp was closed on 15. December. The 113 (109) prisoners who were still alive were sent south to “Lager Osen” in Vefsn.
The mortality rate in the camp was 69%.
BEISFJORD/ØVRE JJERNVATN
On 24. June 1942, 900 prisoners arrived in Narvik on the cargo ship Kerkplein. The prisoners were subjected to particularly harsh treatment. At the start of July, camp medical personnel started to suspect a typhoid outbreak was happening in the camp. The prisoners who were judged to be healthy were moved to the Øvre Jernvatn camp. The night of 18. July, the prisoners remaining in the Beisfjord camp were made to form groups of 20, and were then executed, one group after the other. A panic broke out, and prisoners who tried to escape the barracks where they were awaiting their executions, were shot or burned alive inside. When the night was over, 288 prisoners had been massacred in the Beisfjord camp.
The camp was closed on 24. October 1942, the surviving 152 prisoners sent south. 82 of them to «Lager Osen», and 70 to «Lager Korgen», where they arrived on 28. October 1942.
The mortality rate for the prisoners sent to the Beisfjord camp (over the span of four months) was 83%.
BOTN
Of the 893 prisoners who arrived in Bergen on 14. June 1942, 30 were killed before they could leave the city. 400 were sent to Karasjok (26 of them shot in Tromsø), and the remaining 463 sent to the roadworks in Saltdal and the prison camp in Both, where they arrived on 25. July. In October 1942, a Serbian doctor was sent to Botn, and in April 1943 another 400 prisoners arrived in the camp, making the total of inmates 864. The camp was shut down on 1. June 1944, the prisoners first sent on to the camp at Pothus, and later to the assembly camp by the Arctic Circle.
374 prisoners were killed in the Saltdal facilities – a mortality rate of 43%.
OSEN AND KORGEN
See separate article covering these two camps.
2099 of the 3251 prisoners sent to Northern Norway were killed – a mortality rate of 65%. Of the 2099 fatalities, 2029 of them died in the five camps described above. The vast majority of these prisoners died in the period leading up to 6. March 1943, while the camps were under the leadership of the Algemeine SS.