4 Best Sights in Oslo, Norway

Striped prison uniforms, underground news sheets, and homemade weapons tell the history of the resistance movement that arose before and during Norway’s occupation by Nazi Germany. A gray, winding path leads to two underground stone vaults in which models, pictures, writings, and recordings trace the times between Germany’s first attack in 1940 to Norway’s liberation on May 8, 1945. Every year, on the anniversaries of these dates, Norwegian resistance veterans gather here to commemorate Norway’s dark days and honor those who lost their lives. The former ammunitions depot and the memorial lie at the exact spot where Norwegian patriots were executed by the Germans.

One of Scandinavia’s largest cities, Oslo has changed and evolved greatly over its thousand years. A two-floor, meandering exhibition covers Oslo’s prominence in 1050, the Black Death that came in 1348, the great fire of 1624 and subsequent rebuilding, and the urban development of the 20th century. Among the more interesting relics are the red coats that the first Oslo police officers wore in 1700 and the town's first fire wagon, which appeared in 1765.

Located in the beautiful Villa Grande, this museum presents a sobering exhibition on Nazi Germany's murder of 6 million European Jews, including a third of the Jewish population in Norway.