Ten years of the Utöya assassination attempt: Don’t lose the island to terror


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Status: 07/22/2021 9:31 a.m.

It has been ten years since the right-wing extremist Breivik killed 77 people. Norway still argues today about the correct lessons from the Utöya attack. How do survivors deal with this?

By Christian Blenker, ARD-Studio Stockholm

If you want to go to Utöya, you have to cross the water. Sindre Lysö is standing by the Tyrifjord and waiting for the small ferry that will bring him to the island. Sindre is general secretary of the social democratic youth organization AUF. Ten years ago, the now 25-year-old stood here too. He was a participant in the summer camp at that time.

“Ten years are short and long at the same time,” he says. “In short, because you continue to live with your worries and suffering – coping with the trauma. We just carry around July 22nd with us. But it’s also a long time because a lot has changed.”

The drive to the island only takes a few minutes. Shortly after arrival, you can see the main white house on the island. Sindre shows us the hill on which hundreds of young people will again be sitting in a few days, listening to the speeches and discussing them. Sindre is planning this year’s camp. Ten years after 69 children and young people were shot in cold blood by a right-wing extremist here.

Sindre Lysö is planning this year’s camp on the island. Education is the most important thing to defeat right-wing extremism, he says.

Image: Screenshot / ARD-Studio Stockholm

Should we sing and laugh again here?

They had long struggled with whether they should ever laugh and sing here again, says Sindre. “Our task is to remember those who we lost back then. Our task is also to continue to fight the social tendencies that were responsible for the attack back then. That is why we educate about this day. That is the best way we can defeat terrorism and right-wing extremism. ”

On July 22, 2011, right-wing extremist assassin Anders Breivik set off a bomb in Oslo’s government district. Eight people were killed here. He then drove to Utöya Island disguised as a policeman. He immediately opened fire on the island. The youth alerted the police, but they did not come.

Breivik ran across the island for an hour and a half and killed. 69 people died on the island. In addition to the police work, it is also criticized that the bomber was able to radicalize himself unnoticed over the years and plan the attacks.

“So tolerant that we accepted everything”

Peace researcher Liv Törres was in Oslo’s government district when the bomb exploded there. The Norwegian now works for New York University and criticizes that her home country did not learn the right lessons from the attacks.

“We never really did the important work-up,” she says. “We didn’t talk about the values ​​in our society. We didn’t talk about how we want to stop right-wing extremism in the long term. As a society, we were actually so open and tolerant that we simply accepted everything.”

Kamzy Gunaratnam struggles with the fact that many in Norway want to close the Utöya chapter.

Image: Screenshot / ARD-Studio Stockholm

“The perpetrator was a result of our society”

Kamzy Gunaratnam was also up then Utoya. When the assassin shot, she jumped into the fjord and swam for her life. We meet Kamzy in Oslo. She is now the deputy mayor of Oslo. In autumn Kamzy Gunaratnam will run for the labor party for the Norwegian parliament.

“The attacks weren’t a random natural disaster,” says the 33-year-old. “The perpetrator was a result of our society. We have to create a society in which this is no longer possible.”

But it hurts to come to terms with it. And Kamzy and other survivors also have to experience that not everyone in Norway wants to open their old wounds. “When you experience something like that, society expects from a certain point in time that you have to end it now. But people don’t know what we have experienced. Of course, you can’t shake it off even after ten or 20 years. The trauma remains.”

Today a memorial on Utöya commemorates the massacre. The “Hegnhuset” – in German “Zaunhaus” – is also designed as a place of learning.

Image: EPA

Summer camps as an important sign

The survivors deal with it differently. Some never want to go back here – Johannes Dalen Giske does. Ten years ago he worked on the ferry that brought the assassin to Utöya. He shows us the only place on the island where the traces of the attacks can still be seen. The “fence house”, as they call it, is now a place to come to terms with things.

The SMS traffic between parents and their child can be read on a board. “In the end it just says: Call me! Please call me! Please answer me at last,” explains Johannes. “At that point she was already dead. That is terrible.”

Such a place of mourning and remembrance is important, says Johannes. But also that there are summer camps on the island again. This is an important sign that we have not lost the island to the terror.

Ten years after the terror: Utöya is not over yet

Carsten Schmiester, NDR, July 22, 2021 9:32 a.m.



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