page_title: Blood Road
section_title: Shutdown and repatriation
hierarchical_section_title: Blood Road / Shutdown and repatriation
caption_attribution_description: Norsk bokmål: Frigjort russisk krigsfange fra leiren Bjørnelva i Saltdal. Fotografiet er hentet fra privatarkivet etter lege og major Leiv Kreyberg, som var sjef for krigsfangekontoret i Bodø etter kapitulasjonen. Riksarkivet har også arkiv etter kontoret hans. Det inneholder blant annet fangelister fra leirer i Nordland i mai 1945, også fra Bjørnelva.
context_page_description: The Blood Road is a route northeast of Rognan in the municipality of Saltdal in Nordland county, Norway that was built by prisoners during the Second World War. The route was a new section of Norwegian National Road 50 between Rognan and Langset on the east side of Saltdal Fjord, where there was a ferry service before the war. The specific incident that gave the road its name was a cross of blood that was painted on a rock cutting in June 1943. The blood came from a prisoner that was shot along the route, and the cross was painted by his brother.
  The prisoners lived in a primitive camp in the village of Botn, just 2 kilometers outside Rognan. The prisoners of war had very small daily rations, long working hours, poor clothing for winter use, primitive barracks, and miserable sanitation, and they were treated cruelly. The Botn camp was first led by the SS, and under their direction mass executions were also carried out.
  When the Wehrmacht took over management of the Botn camp in October 1943, the conditions gradually improved. The conditions further improved when the Red Cross learned of the camps and several inspections were conducted.
context_section_description: A review conducted by Chief Physician Simon Frostad (1903–1984) showed that there were a total of 7,465 prisoners of war in Saltdal as of May 14, 1945. This figure is a minimum. The large number of prisoners represented more than a doubling of the population in the municipality. When the camps were shut down, many needed rehabilitation, and their repatriation also took time. After three months, all of the camps were empty.
  The sources give different accounts of the number of prisoners in total in the Botn camp. Cveja Jovanović specifies some figures in his book; namely, that 463 prisoners came to the camp on 25 July 1942. Of these, 276 died in April 1943. On April 11 the same year, a further 400 Partisan prisoners were transferred to Botn. Later that month, the Wehrmacht took over the guard duties, and under their direction a total of 18 were shot, 60 died of other causes, and 23 managed to escape. Later, 105 people were sent to the medical camp at Øysand in Trondheim. On June 1, 1944 the Boten camp was shut down and all of the remaining 381 prisoners were sent to the Potthus camp a little further south in Saltdal. These figures differ from those cited in other sources (the primary source is testimony by witnesses), but they give an idea of the magnitude.
  The Russian prisoners that were released were either executed upon arrival in Murmansk, or were sent to filtration camps because under the Soviet penal code they supposed to be traitors for having allowed themselves to be taken prisoner.
caption: Freed Russian prisoner of war from the Bjørnelva camp in Saltdal, 1945
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