- "Storgata 62 in Tromsø is threatened by development - façade changes and demolition of the backyard building," says Hanna Geiran, Minister of Cultural Heritage, and we are adopting temporary protection to ensure that important cultural heritage values are not lost. The building and the backyard building tell an important Jewish story in Tromsø.
Temporary preservation means that the Directorate for Cultural Heritage and the county council investigate permanent preservation of the buildings. This usually takes six months, during which time the property is treated as protected. The Cultural Heritage Act allows for temporary preservation, but it is very rare for the National Heritage Board to use this as a tool.
Tromsø municipality has granted permission to demolish the backyard building at Storgata 62, and to rebuild the facade of the building facing the street. The buildings are protected in the municipality's own plans, and the county council strongly advised against the planned development.
- "Jewish history should be more than stumbling blocks in the streets," says Hanna Geiran, "and that's why it's important to preserve Jewish history in Norway. Here we know that the building in Storgata 62 and the facade facing the street are intact as they were when the Jewish Klein family and the J. Klein clothing store were located here. The same applies to the back building. Storgata 62 therefore tells us about both everyday life and war history for Jews in Norway in the 1930s and 40s.
The buildings are an important part of the old wooden house environment in the center of Tromsø. The threat to the cultural heritage values relates in particular to the alteration of the authentic character of the facades of the main building and the total removal of the rear building in relation to Jewish history in Tromsø and Norway.
As a war memorial, the main building at Storgata 62 is also symbolically important, as it is said to have been confiscated after the deportation of the Jewish family that lived here. It is then said to have been used as a propaganda building for Nazism, with propaganda text applied to the street facade.
- "Protecting national minorities' cultural heritage and cultural environments is a special focus for us," says Hanna Geiran, "and we want to contribute to a representative preservation list that will preserve a selection of cultural monuments of geographical, social, ethnic, industrial and temporal breadth. The Directorate for Cultural Heritage is currently working with the county councils to map Jewish culture in Norwegian cities, and Tromsø is one of the places where such mapping is taking place.
Briefly about the people who lived there
Moritz Klein was born in 1911 in Trondheim to parents Henoch and Anne Ruth Klein. Henoch was a businessman in Trondheim, and when he wanted to start a business in Northern Norway, he sent his eldest son, Josef, who established J. Klein Herreekvipering og Manufaktur AS in Tromsø in 1937. At first, the store was located in Storgata 84 for less than a year. The following year, the store moved to Storgata 62 and Josef's brother, Moritz, took over the running of the store the same year in 1938. The store sold men's clothing. On the same street was the building that was rented several times as a synagogue for Jewish holidays.
Moritz Klein was arrested by the occupying forces on June 18, 1941. He was first placed in the camp at Sydspissen, then sent to Kvænangen before being sent to Falstad prison camp. In November 1942, Moritz Klein was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp. On the memorial stone at Prostneset for Jews from Tromsø who were killed in a concentration camp, he is listed as having died in 1943. He was 32 years old, but the exact date of death is unknown.
Moritz Klein was one of 17 Jews in Tromsø who were deported and killed during the war. His wife Mirjam and daughter Anne-Rita made it to Sweden and survived. Moritz Klein's name is on the memorial plaque at Roald Amundsen Square, and a stumbling block has been placed outside the house.
The building in Storgata 62 was confiscated by the Germans during World War II. Propaganda for Nazi culture is said to have been applied to the facades. Tromsø Municipality's archives contain a building notification drawing from 1942, in which a long horizontal band with propaganda writing is applied to the facade. «With Germany for a new Europe».
After the war, the property was returned to Mirjam Klein. The Klein family and their descendants owned the property until 2016.
