Beisfjord Memorial Grove

Beisfjord Memorial Park is located in Beisfjord, south of Narvik, in the area where Beisfjord prison camp was located during World War II. Today, few physical traces of the camp have been preserved, but the memorial monuments and information boards make the site an important point for understanding a brutal part of the Narvik region's war history.

In June 1942, Beisfjord prison camp was completed by the German occupying forces. Shortly afterwards, 900 exhausted and hungry Yugoslav prisoners arrived at the Fagernes quay in Narvik. They were forced to go into the camp in Beisfjord, and six prisoners died on the way. In the period from 24 June to 25 October 1942, 748 of the 900 Yugoslav prisoners died in Beisfjord prison camp and the sub-camp at Øvre Jernvann.

On the night of 18 July 1942, the largest massacre in recent Norwegian history took place in Beisfjord prison camp, when 287 Yugoslav prisoners were killed. Later, Soviet prisoners of war came to the camp. A total of 3500–4000 Soviet prisoners of war visited Beisfjord prison camp in the period from October 1942 to May 1945, 347 of whom died and were buried next to the camp. The remains were later moved to a collection pit at Tjøtta during Operation Asphalt in 1951.

The memorial to the Soviet prisoners of war was made by the prisoners themselves after the liberation in May 1945 and opened on June 6, 1945. The memorial to the Yugoslav prisoners was erected in 1949. Beisfjord Memorial Park is a place of knowledge, silence and respect, where history sits close to the landscape.