EDINBURGH.- Easter sees the opening of an exhibition to honour the sacrifice of World War II airmen – focusing on the experience of one young Norwegian whose plane was brought down over Hamburg.

Leith School of Art is hosting Prisoner of War: Paintings and Poems which features paintings by visual artist Bodil Friele alongside translations of poems written by her father, Odd (Olly) Grønfur Olsen, during his years in a PoW camp.

An RAF navigator on his third mission, Olly only survived because the pilot gave his own life to try to save his comrades – ordering them to the back of the crippled Halifax bomber while he remained at the controls for a crash landing.

Bodil is in Edinburgh with her long term partner, the Scots-born philanthropist and former leading businessman, Trond Mohn.

Bodil said: “Stories about a few of our airmen are well known, but most are not. I wanted this exhibition to be an homage to the silent – a tribute to all the forgotten young men, to their courage and their sacrifice.

“Although the focus is on my father and his experiences as an airman and as a prisoner, it represents all those others whose stories have gone unrecognised.”

The first thing Olly did after returning home to Bergen was to visit the parents of his pilot, Erik Bjerke, to thank them for their son’s heroism.

Like many young Norwegians, Olly had fled his Nazi occupied homeland to fight for the freedom of Europe.

“He escaped the SS, leaving his home in Bergen without even his family knowing where he was going and then boarded a motorboat which took him to freedom in Shetland,” said Bodil.

At that time the Norwegian Lutheran church, where Leith School of Art (LSA) is now based, was an important centre for Scandinavian exiles who used it as a place to meet, mix and get news about home. While it is not known whether Olly visited the church himself many others did. Among them was the radical poet and journalist Nordahl Greig who died when the plane he was in was shot down over Berlin.

Later in life Mr Grønfur Olsen developed business links between Norway, Germany and Britain – believing it was vital for nations to build positive relations and that following the horrors of World War II it was important “to forgive but not forget”.

Trond was delighted to be back in Edinburgh. He was born in Buckie in 1943 after his family escaped the Nazi occupation of Norway and his father joined the army. They returned to Norway after the war ended in 1945.

Trond said: “It’s a real pleasure to be in Edinburgh for the launch of this exhibition. It’s nice to be back in Scotland – the country that gave my parents refuge and the place was I was born. My father and mother always spoke very highly of Scotland and its people.”

The Prisoner of War: Paintings and Poems exhibition is a collaboration between LSA and the Bergen-based Helping Hand Trust, which helps support the school. The exhibition is the first of a series of ongoing cultural exchanges between Bergen and the arts community linked to LSA and Edinburgh.

Lisbeth Iverson, Chair of the Helping Hand Trust, said: “This exhibition makes an ideal start for what we hope will be many cultural exchanges. Edinburgh and Bergen have had close links for a very long time and we want to strengthen these further.

“The church is a very important part of our history as it is the oldest Norwegian seaman’s church outside Norway. It was always a place people could go and meet other Norwegians. During World War II this was especially important, it was the centre of many networks and there are many strong stories and experiences connected with this building.”

The exhibition will feature around eight paintings, four poems, an aircraft sculpture and a small section from the wing of an RAF bomber.