About the restitution and the project

After the Holocaust, surviving Norwegian Jews began rebuilding their lives. As part of the genocide, all their property had been confiscated in an attempt to erase all traces of Jewish life in Norway. After the liberation, survivors turned to the restitution system set up by the Norwegian state to have their property returned or compensated.

In my doctoral research, I have researched the survivors’ experiences when applying for restitution, and how the Norwegian state treated them throughout the process. My project examines the restitution case files of every single person in the Norwegian‑Jewish minority — about 2,400 individuals. I focus particularly on the larger human significance of restitution: how property was tied to emotions, homes, and the lives that were lost in the Holocaust. I earned my doctorate in November 2025 and am now working on turning the thesis into a book.

How personal data is handled

As part of the project, I have created a database containing information about all members of Norwegian‑Jewish families in the 1940s. As personal stories, this data is treated with the greatest care – both in storage and in how the findings are presented. The database and all source material are stored on encrypted and password‑protected hard drives that only I can access. All individuals are anonymized in the dissemination of the research. The project’s handling of personal data has been reviewed by Sikt to ensure that it meets all requirements for responsible data management.

People whose information appears in the database have several rights under the GDPR. Among these are the right to access the information recorded about them, the right to correct it, and the right to have it deleted. If you would like more details about how your data is processed, or if you wish to exercise any of these rights, you are welcome to contact me at elise.b.berggren@ntnu.no.