7.22
So, here we are. It's been a year since the terrorist attacks in Oslo and at Utøya. This has been declared a national day of mourning and remembrance.
I've been preparing myself for this for some time now, for whatever reason these attacks really got to me. I still have days where I'm overpowered by anger or grief about what happened. I still jump mile high at any unexpected loud noises. I felt guilty about being so affected by it during the weeks that followed the attacks, because I was afraid I'd come across as attention seeking for talking about it. But I've realised that everyone processes these kind of things differently, I'm allowed to take my time with it, even if I wasn't directly involved in any way.
NRK, our main Norwegian broadcasting company, is doing a 10 hour live broadcast from various remembrance ceremonies all around the country today. 10 hours. It feels very excessive to me. There's already been dozens of infographics on what happened when, countless eye witness accounts, interactive maps where people can plot in where they were at and what they felt when it happened, they've published some of the many drawings and messages that were placed around the city after the attacks ... we have surrounded ourselves by all these things for a year now, do we really need to remember more of it? I hope we'll be able to move on after this.
I haven't followed the news for a year now. Reading news where most of the headlines would be about the attacks or the killer completely broke me, so I had to stay away. When the trial finally finished, I started carefully browsing headlines again - a couple of days ago I noticed a quote from a family member of one of the victims; "The mourning begins now."
Last year we had an impromptu "rose march" a couple of days after the attacks. The streets got so crowded that we couldn't actually go through with the march. There was this overwhelming feeling of powerlessness, yet everyone wanted to go out and do something. I'm sure the city will soon be filled with flowers again. Pictured above is the stage they have set up for the big remembrance concert that is taking place in Oslo tonight.
Last year they had to close off the street in front of Oslo Cathedral, because the sheer amount of flowers placed in front of it didn't leave any room for cars. They've recently dug up one of the park areas next to the cathedral and put up a remembrance space.
The heart sculpture reads "greatest of all is love". I am still pretty proud of how we handled the aftermath of these attacks. I think we asked the right kind of questions, and there was heavy focus on the victims as opposed to the terrorist.
And here we are one year later. The tall building in the background with the white facade cover is the government building that was bombed. They still haven't decided if they are going to tear it down or not. They've fixed the clock face of the clock on the building in the foreground (it was broken in half until just a couple of months ago), but other windows are still missing.
A building being prepared to have new windows installed.
Looking in at a restaurant that is placed right next to one of the buildings that got heavily damaged from the blast. Following the attacks, there circulated a video of one of the people who worked at this restaurant during the attacks (surveillance footage from the restaurant). Right before the blast, she bent down to tie her shoelace. It probably saved her life.
Some stores display pictures of what the street they are on looked like last year.
The government quarter was recently opened up for pedestrian traffic, and it's a rather sad sight. It feels incredibly good to be able to navigate the city like I used to, though. I often used to pass through the government quarter to get to where I was going.
"Watch out for broken glass"
77 people lost their lives in these attacks, and we'll probably never forget how their deaths changed us.