17th May Celebration Programme

09:15 – Cissi Klein speech by Year 7 students at Museumsparken 09:15 – Poems, speeches, and School Choir performance on the playground 09:40 – Birralee students line up to join the parade

11:00–13:00 – Festivities on the playground organised by the Parents’ Committee (food and games)

We hope that as many students as possible will join us for the procession through Trondheim. Parents and families are warmly invited to enjoy our traditional programme of speeches, poems, and songs on the playground before and after the parade. The School Choir will perform, and students and staff will give speeches throughout the celebration.

The tradition of the 17th May children’s parade dates back to 1870, when the first schoolchildren’s procession took place in Oslo on the initiative of Norwegian writer Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. In Trondheim, the adult citizens’ parade, known as “Borgertoget,” began even earlier, in 1826.

Each year on 17th May, we also honour Cissi Klein, a Norwegian victim of the Holocaust. Cissi was a student at Kalvskinnet School, and our students commemorate her memory every year. Two Year 7 students will give a speech in Museumsparken before flowers are laid at her statue.

Cissi Klein lived at Leutenhaven with her parents and her brother, Abraham. Her parents owned a shop, and both children attended Kalvskinnet School. Cissi had many friends and enjoyed school life. However, after the outbreak of the Second World War and the occupation of Norway, life became increasingly difficult for Jewish families in Norway.

On 6 October 1942, Cissi was arrested at school. She was later deported from Oslo aboard the transport ship D/S Gotenland to Stettin, and from there sent by train to Auschwitz. She was killed on the day she arrived, 3 March 1943, at just 13 years old.