Gold Transport and Lillehammer

Yesterday’s adventure took me to Lillehammer (site of the 1994 Winter Olympics) to see the building that was the first repository of all of Norway’s gold during the daring evacuation from Norges Bank in Oslo. The train ride was a peaceful 2 1/2 trip north of Oslo, along Norway’s largest lake, Mjøsa (Mjøsa is also one of the deepest lakes in Norway and in Europe).

Norges Bank, Lillehammer ca. 1920 (Photo: Digitalmuseum)

I had arranged for a private tour of the former bank, which now houses office space on the upper floors, and currently has a trendy restaurant called the “Hvelvet” on the main level, which translates to “The Vault”, for obvious reasons.

Norges Bank Lillehammer, Photo: July 20, 2022 (today Hvelvet Restaurant) (Photo: Randi Millman-Brown)

The building itself is important for my story for a number of reasons, but primarily because I now know that Thor participated in the daring mission with 51 other armed bank employees to get Norway’s gold out of Oslo, out of the hands of the approaching Nazis, and eventually out of Norway (for additional information click this link: Gold Transport).

The reason for the evacuation of the gold from Oslo to Lillehammer was that the vault at Lillehammer’s branch was the most secure vault in all of Norway. The concrete is almost 25 inches thick, including the floor. Members of Lillehammer’s shooting club were installed as guards for the arrival of the gold.

Vault door where gold was secured for 10 days (April 9 - 19, 1940) (Photo: Randi Millman-Brown)

How much gold was there? Tons. 818 40 kilo (88 lbs) boxes, 685 25 kilo (55 lbs.) boxes, and 39 80 kilo (176 lbs.) barrels. It took only a few hours to load these onto 25 trucks and leave for Lillehammer. The first truck left at 8:15 am, and the last left Oslo at 1:30 pm, just as German troops were marching down Karl Johans Gate - the main street in Oslo.