In the fall of 1942, the Norwegian state police were planning to arrest all Jewish men, on German orders. A small number of police officers with contacts to the resistance passed on information about the upcoming arrest campaign. Jewish people then had to find hiding places as quickly as possible.
Professor Andreas Diesen was a senior doctor at Oslo’s Ullevål Hospital. He and his colleague Dr. Haakon Sæthre, the head of the psychiatric department, granted protection to several Jews by passing them off as patients.
Andreas Diesen’s son was a musician at the Chat Noir cabaret theater in Oslo. His colleague Robert Levin was Jewish, and also in danger. Shortly before the arrests, Prof. Diesen arranged for Robert Levin to hide in the hospital, using a false diagnosis. After a few days in the psychiatric department, Levin found another hiding place. The hospital was searched shortly later.
Andreas Diesen was honored posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 2013.