This fall we present the exhibition  “Stolen Years: Children in the High North during the Second World War”. The exhibition presents stories of and from children who lived in Northern Norway and Northwest Russia (the Soviet Union) during the Second World War. The exhibition commemorates the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Through the use of individual stories and a rich material of photos we present a new perspective on the second world war in the North. The stories about the faith of children during war are often silenced by the grand stories about battles, military strategy and heroic deeds. Even less is known about the situation in the neighbouring country, which is true in Norway as well as Russia.

In cooperation with the Murmansk Museum of Regional Studies we wanted to do something about this. On the basis of a cooperation agreement signed by the directors Elena Khimchuk and Eystein Markusson in Nikkel in October 2018 a cooperation project started. Project managers have been Ekaterina Orekhova (Murmansk) and Elena Badanina (Narvik).

The exhibition opened simultaneously in Murmansk and Norway on September 8th 2020. Due to the ongoing pandemic mutual visits were banned, but we hope that the public will enjoy the exhibition. It is presented in Russian and English in Murmansk and Norwegian and English in Narvik. There is a exhibition catalogue available in Russian, Norwegian and English for sale in the museum shop and internet store of the Narvik War Museum.

The project is supported by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat and the Fritt Ord Foundation.