Norway has opened a new memorial in Oslo for the 77 victims of the Utoeya massacre, days before the 15th anniversary of the attack.
Norway has opened a new Utoeya memorial in Oslo for the 77 victims of the country’s deadliest peacetime terror attack, just days before the 15th anniversary of the violence.
The memorial was unveiled on Sunday as survivors and relatives gathered in the capital. The artwork centers on a bird native to Utoeya island and is meant both to honor those killed and to call the public to democratic resilience against the far-right ideas that inspired the attack, according to the artist.
On 22 July 2011, Anders Breivik killed eight people with a car bomb in Oslo before shooting dead another 69 people, mostly teenagers, at a youth camp on Utoeya. Hundreds more were injured in what remains Norway’s worst atrocity in recent history. The new work, titled Upholding, stands in Oslo’s renovated government district near the site of the bomb blast that began the attack.
The contemporary piece includes a large blue steel frame holding a 12-meter stone mosaic of a small wading bird, with straw and sticks reflected in water. Artist Matias Faldbakken said he had seen the bird on Utoeya. Many of those killed on the island were teenagers active in the youth wing of Norway’s Labour Party, the AUF.
Merete Stamneshagen, who leads a support group for victims and survivors, told AFP that July 22, 2011, was an attack not only on individuals but on democracy itself. Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon and government officials attended the unveiling, and Haakon also visited the new 22 July Centre, the country’s memorial and education center for the attacks. Breivik was sentenced in 2012 to 21 years in prison, Norway’s maximum term, with the possibility of extension if he is still considered a threat. He has repeatedly challenged the terms of his confinement, lost a parole bid in 2022, and failed in a 2024 lawsuit over isolation measures. The new Utoeya memorial shows how Norway is still working to remember the dead while defending its democracy from the hatred that fueled the attack.
