The National Heritage Board has listed the house and apple orchard belonging to the Sachnowitz family, who were deported and killed during the persecution of Norwegian Jews in 1942-43. Of the nine family members, only their son Herman Sachnowitz returned home from the extermination camps.
This is a national cultural monument that concerns us all. The preservation of Sveins gate 15 will preserve the memory of a Jewish family from interwar Norway that was nearly wiped out. In Norway, 773 Jews were sent to death camps. The house and garden are closely linked to the shocking history of the Holocaust in Norway, which Herman Sachnowitz himself has testified to in book form, says Director General of Cultural Heritage Hanna Geiran.
The purpose of the preservation order is to preserve Sveins gate 15 in Larvik as an example of a residential property for a Jewish family from the early 1900s until 1941. The preservation order will contribute to documenting and preserving the life and history of the Jewish population in Norway as part of European history.
The fact that Jewish cultural heritage sites are protected by the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage means that they are also recognized as Norwegian national cultural heritage sites. For a minority that was considered «others» during the war, this protection is a clear signal that we are part of the greater whole. Herman Sachnowitz was one of the few who survived several years in Auschwitz, and the first to write about it in 1976. It was a turning point. We all became familiar with his horrific experiences and developed an emotional connection to the apple orchard. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the family who lives in the house for their positive attitude towards the preservation order, says Ervin Kohn, director of the Jewish Community of Oslo.
Only one came home
Herman Sachnowitz (1921-1978) was the only member of his family from Larvik to survive the Nazi extermination camps during World War II. He played the trumpet in a prisoner orchestra at Auschwitz.
In the groundbreaking book Det angår også deg (It Concerns You Too) from 1976, which Herman Sachnowitz wrote together with Arnold Jacoby, he describes how memories from the death camps can resurface thirty years later. He recounts his deportation on the ship Donau in November 1942, when his sister Marie sang the hit song «Månestråle» (Moonbeam) for the prisoners on board, and how he himself finally returned home to Larvik after losing his entire family.
Freder the children's apple trees
The house at Sveins gate 15 in Larvik is today a well-preserved, white-painted Art Nouveau villa. It was Sara and Israel Leib Sachnowitz who had the house built in 1922-23. At the back of the garden, the apple trees that Israel planted for each of his eight children still stand: Martin, Elias, Samuel, Rebekka Rita, Marie, Herman, Frida, and Frank. When his wife Sara died in 1939, he planted a tree for her too.
Herman Sachnowitz returned home in 1945 to find his childhood home empty and looted. His family was gone, but the trees planted by his siblings were still standing, as they still do today, and they continue to bear fruit.
"When we also preserve the apple orchard and the trees in it, it is to ensure that they remain important and symbolic reminders of the Sachnowitz family and the children who lived here," says National Heritage Director Hanna Geiran.
In addition to the trees, the preservation order covers the main building and its façade. The three rooms on the ground floor are preserved, including interior features such as windows, doors, fireplace, and mezuzah, a small container with Jewish prayers written on parchment, which is attached to the doorframe.
Jewish history in Norway
Herman Sachnowitz settled in his childhood home in Larvik after the war, with his wife Paula and daughters Rita and Marion. He sold the house when the family moved to Oslo in 1965. The current owners of Sveins gate 15 have lived there for almost 38 years.
Since we moved in in 1985, we have been interested in the history of the house and have made various discoveries and choices along the way. Perhaps the most significant of our many cultural discoveries was the finding of a mezuzah, a prayer scroll that was hidden behind the paint in the doorframe. The story behind the apple trees that were once planted for the eight children has given us a sense of responsibility and reverence for caring for, pruning, and harvesting them. We are delighted that the house has been listed and will continue to take good care of the property, say Berit Rustenberg and Petter Knutsen, who live in the house today.
The preservation order is part of the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage's initiative to protect the cultural heritage of national minorities, and is currently the fourth cultural heritage site linked to Jewish history in Norway to be protected. The Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage would like to thank Vestfold and Telemark County Council for preparing the preservation order.
The preservation of Sveins gate 15 is of great importance to our own region, but also to the whole country. Through this preservation, our local and regional history becomes part of European history. The site will be preserved for all time and will be used for teaching and training so that we do not forget the injustices that were committed. On behalf of Vestfold and Telemark County Council, I would like to thank the Director General of Cultural Heritage for the initiative and for entrusting our cultural heritage staff with the task of facilitating the preservation. Through this work, we have brought history back into the spotlight, which is necessary when we see that democracy and human dignity are under threat in countries close to us, says Maja Foss Five (Ap), deputy county mayor and chair of the main committee for culture, public health, dental health, and sports in Vestfold and Telemark County.
