The great raid – one night, forty arrests

Place: notodden · Stand-in location

In the early hours of 24 November 1943 German and Norwegian police carried out a concerted raid against the resistance movement in Notodden. Around 40 people were arrested during the night – among them the Milorg sector commander Ottar Haugland, Rolf Gerhardsen, Tormod Ljosland, Sigurd Gohli, Alvhild Jørgensen and the courier Liv Gundersen.

Altogether 26 people from Notodden, nine from Hjuksebø, three from Nordagutu, one from Bø and two from Lunde were sent to Grini. The raid tore up large parts of the local Milorg apparatus in a single night.

Even so, the work was built up again. When young age groups were called up to Arbeidstjenesten, the NS labour service, in the spring of 1944 and no one turned up, new groups grew up in the forests around the town – among them Tysjå-gutta, the Tysjå boys, who from the autumn of 1944 formed part of "Operation Sunshine".

The raid hit the whole town, and the individual arrest sites are not mapped in the available sources. The marker is therefore a stand-in anchor on Notodden Torv and does not show a particular arrest site. The point is calculated as the midpoint between the official address points Torvet 1, 2, 2B and 3.

Sources

• Militær motstand på Notodden – Måna Forlag — Hovedkilde for antall arresterte, navnene og fordelingen av Grini-fanger på Notodden, Hjuksebø, Nordagutu, Bø og Lunde.
• Ottar Haugland (1915–2002) – DigitaltMuseum — Bekrefter datoen natt til 24. november 1943 og at avsnittssjefen ble tatt i razziaen.
• Adressepunkter Torvet 1/2/2B/3, 3674 Notodden – Kartverkets adresse-API — Brukt til å beregne det symbolske ankerpunktet på torget.