The farmer Iver Skogstad lived with his wife Martha and three children on Rødenes Lake in Norway, around five miles (9 km) from the Swedish border. At the start of 1942, his neighbor arranged for him to take refugees to the border. About eight helpers were involved in helping the escapees. They generally spent the night on the Skogstads’ farm before the last stage of their journey.
Iver Skogstad continued helping refugees to escape and performing courier duties until the fall of 1944. During that time, he and his fellow helpers managed to take some 500 Jewish and non-Jewish people to the Swedish border.
Through the arrest of another escape helper, the police eventually became aware of Iver Skogstad. He was arrested on his farm on October 16, 1944, put in prison in Halden, interrogated, and tortured. Despite this, he did not betray anyone. In November 1944 he was transferred to Grini police prison camp near Oslo, where he was liberated in May 1945. The after-effects of his imprisonment remained with him for the rest of his life.
Iver Skogstad was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem in 2009.
Iver and Martha Skogstad with their three children, undated. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Skogstad’s farm near the Swedish border village of Töcksfors, after 1945. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
The Grini police prison camp northwest of Oslo, where 20,000 people were incarcerated up to the end of the war, among them 620 women, undated. Source: Norges Hjemmefrontmuseum, Oslo
