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Between the quiet spaces of memory and the streets of childhood, a forgotten time unfolds – told with warmth, weight and faithful remembrance.
"Take Me Back"
A digital exhibition about Jewish upbringing in post-war Trondheim
Take Me Back is a digital exhibition that highlights childhood memories from Jewish children in post-war Trondheim. Through personal stories and rich archival images, we gain insight into how families bore the grief of the Holocaust, while building new lives in a changing society. The exhibition gives voice to a generation that grew up in the tension between silence and tradition, community and renewal.
The exhibition consists of video clips, images, audio and text. You navigate by touching the screen. Tap on the three themes and scroll through the stories that unfold!
Background
In 2022, the Jewish Museum Trondheim interviewed 20 Jewish people born in Trondheim in the period 1944-1952. Take me back was the working title of the project, and also the invitation to the informants: We wanted them to take us back to their childhood and tell us about their memories and experiences from growing up. The result was approximately 40 hours of stories, memories, anecdotes and reflections. In this exhibition we would like to present a small selection of this rich interview material.
Most of the informants are children of Jews who fled to Sweden during the war years. A couple of the informants are children of fathers who survived long stays in Auschwitz. The parents had in common that they returned to an everyday life in Norway where many family members and friends had been killed. In the midst of grief, they were supposed to build a new everyday life, and raise a new generation in a society that in many ways was unable to deal with anti-Semitism.
The Jewish children who grew up in the post-war period witnessed the sorrow of the past coexisting with the optimism that peace brought. The children saw how their parents got up and moved on, and they also had to figure out for themselves which parts of the Jewish tradition they wanted to take with them into adulthood. Through their personal descriptions and stories, we get a unique insight into how Jewish life in Trondheim developed in the post-war period. We also get a picture of what it was like to be a child in the 1950s and 60s, in a country characterized by reconstruction and great faith in the future.
Contributors
This exhibition would not have been possible without the informants, who not only allowed themselves to be interviewed and shared their memories, but also allowed us to show them to the public. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to you!
Take Me Back is developed by the Jewish Museum Trondheim in collaboration with our great partners:
Exhibition architect: Stein Adler Bernhoft
IT solution: Exigo AS
Film editing and subtitling: Allsidig design AS
Construction: Byåsen Trevare AS
Print: Fagtrykk AS
Many thanks to Henriette Kahn, Ruth Paltiel, Torunn Herje and Ralph Buchmann for their support and feedback during the process of putting together the exhibition.
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