Arve Juritzen (born 1960)

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Juritzen authored the biography Henki – Living with the AIDS Virus (1987), which tells the story of Henki Hauge Karlsen, a waiter from Fredrikstad who was dismissed from his job after his employer learned he was HIV-positive. The legal proceedings that followed received widespread public attention in Norway and became a landmark case in the national conversation about HIV/AIDS and discrimination.

Henki Hauge Karlsen became, in many ways, one of the first public faces of the AIDS crisis in Norway. His case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where he won. He passed away shortly thereafter from AIDS-related illness.

The book Juritzen co-authored with Henki was well received and was also used as educational material in schools.

An excerpt from our interview with Arve Juritzen can be viewed in the window below. In it, he speaks about the overwhelming fear, anxiety, and hysteria that surrounded the new disease in its early years.

The full interview is available in the reading room at the Queer Archives (Skeivt arkiv).
We met Arve Juritzen in Oslo, May 2018.