Hotel Standard was located at Brattørgata 3. The hotel was run by Anna Löfwander-Järwson. Hotel Standard was a meeting place for Sámi people visiting Trondheim. Elsa Laula Renberg, the initiator of the first Sámi National Assembly in Trondheim in 1917, worked closely with two other women. One was Ellen Lie, a Norwegian journalist for the Trondheim newspaper Dagsposten. The other was Anna Löfwander-Järwson. It is likely that many of the participants in the 1917 National Assembly stayed at Hotel Standard. 

Anna Löfwander-Järwson was a successful businesswoman in Trondheim. She first ran the restaurant Fossestuen before taking over Hotel Standard, which she operated with her husband. Anna Löfwander-Järwson has been described as the “finance minister” for the first Sámi National Assembly. She was also connected to the Methodist Church, the venue for the 1917 assembly. When the Sámi newspaper Waren Sardne reported her death in 1926, the paper described her as a friend and benefactor of the Sámi people. 

It is worth noting that Hotel Standard was located in Nerbyn, in what could be called the Jewish quarter of Trondheim before World War II and the Holocaust. Brattørgata was the centre of this area. Today, there are several "stumbling stones" and plaques in memory of what existed before and was destroyed by Nazism. So, it was a meeting place for Sámi people in the Jewish quarter. The Klein family’s shop here had a Sámi employee for a period, and during World War II, Sámi border guides helped save Jewish people by guiding them safely to Sweden. Today, Jews are recognized as a national minority in Norway, and Sámi are recognized as an Indigenous people. 

Sources and further reading 

Banik, V.K. (2023), “Nasjonale minoriteter i Norge”, Store norsk leksikon.

Schackt, J. & Wæhle, E. (2021), “Urfolk”, Store norsk leksikon.

Bilde av Anna Löfwander-Järwson sammen med Elsa Laula Renberg og Ellen Lie: Portrett av Anna Løfwander Jarwson mfl. (tind.io).