Ten Years After Norway’s Deadliest Attack, Planned Memorial Remains Unfinished
On July 22 at 3:25 p.m., sunlight was meant to shine on the first of 77 bronze columns positioned on land across from Norway’s Utoya island, each column symbolizing a victim of the 2011 massacre. Over the next three hours, the sun would have illuminated each column, marking the time from the initial bomb blast in Oslo to the end of the tragedy with Anders Breivik’s arrest on Utoya. However, on the tenth anniversary of Norway’s deadliest peacetime attack, the memorial site remains under construction, leaving survivors and victims’ families without the promised national monument.
The delays stem from an evolving design process, court battles, and local opposition. Some nearby residents, still haunted by the traumatic events, view the delay as a temporary relief from the expected influx of visitors. For survivors and grieving families, however, the postponement feels like a failure. Lisbeth Kristin Roeyneland, whose daughter Synne was killed, expressed disappointment on behalf of survivors and bereaved families, lamenting that a site “in view of the island” should have been ready for this anniversary.
Despite the setbacks, scattered memorials exist across Norway, honoring the victims of that tragic day. Oslo’s cathedral has 1,000 iron roses, inspired by flowers left by mourners in 2011, and Utoya features its own dedicated site with a suspended metal ring inscribed with victims’ names. The café on the island has been transformed into a learning center, surrounded by wooden posts honoring both the survivors and the deceased.
Sindre Lysoe, a survivor, expressed frustration that many still lack a national memorial to gather and honor those lost. Another survivor, Bjoern Magnus Ihler, criticized the drawn-out delays, noting the contrast to the 9/11 memorial in New York, which opened on the attack’s tenth anniversary. Former Youth wing deputy leader Tonje Brenna also criticized the government, contrasting it with the Labor Youth’s own award-winning memorial on Utoya island, a tribute Brenna described as “respectful” and “beautiful.”
