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Olav Bismo´s street – named after a Resistance man in the Second World War

(Norwegian version) Olav Bismo´s street is a side street east of the railway line. Olav Bismo was a young Resistance leader who was shot to death in his own home at Otta in 1944.

Text: Per Erling Bakke

Adapted and translated into English by Ivar Teigum
Olav Bismo (1917–1944

Olav Bismo  was an active youngster. Before the war his activities ranged from music and theatre to sport. In the spring of 1940 he served as a conscripted soldier and took part in the armed defence against the German invaders.

In July, after the surrender, he was back at Otta.

Along with his job in the chemist’s shop he soon got involved in resistance activities, and in the organizing of Milorg – the resistance organization – where he became one of the regional leaders. 

Bismo-huset på Otta i 2015Home of the Bismo family photographed in 2015. In this house Olav Bismo grew up and here he was deadly wounded in World War II. Photo: Palmar Ruste

In the autumn 1944, half a year before the war ended, he was shot in his own home by a Norwegian colloborator, and he died in the hospital at Lillehammer before the Germans had a chance to interrogate him. He was given an anonymous grave.