[A "need not possible to describe by words"--physician refugees 1939-40]

From 1938 onwards, the predicament of Central European Jews was desperate. Norway was one of the most restrictive countries in terms of granting sanctuary to Jewish refugees; in 1939, however, director general of the Norwegian Board of Health Karl Evang (1902-81) proposed that entry permits be issued to a limited number of foreign physicians. This set off a fierce debate in newspaper, journals and medical associations. This article gives an account of that debate. The main arguments against allowing entry were fear of unemployment among Norwegian physicians and the contention that there was no need for foreign physicians in Norway. Anti-Semitic sentiments were hardly expressed. There was, however, almost no realization in Norway of the plight of the Jews, neither among the public at large nor in the medical profession. As it turned out, nine foreign physicians were allowed in, most of them from Czechoslovakia, four of them of professorial rank. Soon after the German occupation of Norway in 1940, Nazi authorities revoked their medical licenses.