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A review by lavinia_reads
One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Åsne Seierstad, Sarah Death
5.0
On the afternoon of July 22, 2011, Anders Breivik parked a van filled with explosives outside the offices of the prime minister in Oslo, Norway. He was wearing a homemade police uniform with falsified police insignias on his arms. He lit the fuse and left. Eight people were killed from the explosion. A lot more were injured.
Breivik fled Oslo by car, he drove north to Utøya, a tiny heart-shaped island in the middle of a lake. There were about 600 young people on the island for the annual summer camp of Norway’s Labour party youth wing. His plan was to decapitate Gro Harlem Brundtland — the former prime minister of Norway, the first woman elected to that post, a progressive politician, a feminist and strong supporter of multiculturalism. But Breivik arrived too late; Gro had already left the island.
Because of the bombing in Oslo the campers thought that the police officer had come to reassure them of their safety and protect them. Breivik carried a handgun and a semiautomatic rifle. It was about 5pm when he opened fire. “You will all die today, Marxists!” he shouted. In the next 73 minutes, he methodically killed and executed 69 teenagers. More than one hundred were seriously injured.
It was Norway’s darkest hours. Three hours of sheer terror. The terrorist explained in detail and on several occasions what he did and why he did it. He claimed he was the leader of the Knights Templar, an organisation that could save Europe from Islamists and multiculturalism. The Norwegian police never found anything to verify his claims that the organisation existed or that it was a leader of it.
Was it a delusion or a lie? Was Breivik a madman or not? His sanity – which the court will rule on – has become one of the key issues of the trial. The psychiatrists who examined him differed on this. The first two forensic psychiatrists, said that Breivik was suffering from “paranoid schizophrenia” when he carried out the murders, but a second pair of court-appointed psychiatrists challenged that ruling. They commented on his lack of remorse for his victims and suggested that he suffers from a mild dissociative mental disorder. In the end it was decided that he was not a madman.
Åsne Seierstad has written a remarkable book. She tells a harrowing, extremely painful story. She throws a light on the life of that man, that many are reluctant to refer to by name. She tells a story that many still can’t bear to hear. She doesn’t speculate; she looks for information. She talked to professionals who observed him during his childhood. She found people, former friends and classmates, who would talk, most of them anonymously. She made use of the police interviews in the case. She interviewed the mother of the terrorist.
Åsne Seierstad also tells the story of the young people who lost their lives in the island, their dreams and aspirations. The book is a tale of the survivors and the relatives, their thoughts and feelings their struggle to come through these events. This a book of sorrow and mourning but it is also a story of friendship and belonging. Even though, I had followed closely the events back then, I wasn’t prepared for this.
Breivik fled Oslo by car, he drove north to Utøya, a tiny heart-shaped island in the middle of a lake. There were about 600 young people on the island for the annual summer camp of Norway’s Labour party youth wing. His plan was to decapitate Gro Harlem Brundtland — the former prime minister of Norway, the first woman elected to that post, a progressive politician, a feminist and strong supporter of multiculturalism. But Breivik arrived too late; Gro had already left the island.
Because of the bombing in Oslo the campers thought that the police officer had come to reassure them of their safety and protect them. Breivik carried a handgun and a semiautomatic rifle. It was about 5pm when he opened fire. “You will all die today, Marxists!” he shouted. In the next 73 minutes, he methodically killed and executed 69 teenagers. More than one hundred were seriously injured.
It was Norway’s darkest hours. Three hours of sheer terror. The terrorist explained in detail and on several occasions what he did and why he did it. He claimed he was the leader of the Knights Templar, an organisation that could save Europe from Islamists and multiculturalism. The Norwegian police never found anything to verify his claims that the organisation existed or that it was a leader of it.
Was it a delusion or a lie? Was Breivik a madman or not? His sanity – which the court will rule on – has become one of the key issues of the trial. The psychiatrists who examined him differed on this. The first two forensic psychiatrists, said that Breivik was suffering from “paranoid schizophrenia” when he carried out the murders, but a second pair of court-appointed psychiatrists challenged that ruling. They commented on his lack of remorse for his victims and suggested that he suffers from a mild dissociative mental disorder. In the end it was decided that he was not a madman.
Åsne Seierstad has written a remarkable book. She tells a harrowing, extremely painful story. She throws a light on the life of that man, that many are reluctant to refer to by name. She tells a story that many still can’t bear to hear. She doesn’t speculate; she looks for information. She talked to professionals who observed him during his childhood. She found people, former friends and classmates, who would talk, most of them anonymously. She made use of the police interviews in the case. She interviewed the mother of the terrorist.
Åsne Seierstad also tells the story of the young people who lost their lives in the island, their dreams and aspirations. The book is a tale of the survivors and the relatives, their thoughts and feelings their struggle to come through these events. This a book of sorrow and mourning but it is also a story of friendship and belonging. Even though, I had followed closely the events back then, I wasn’t prepared for this.