Friday September 22 started with some clouds and light rain, but the sun came out in the afternoon and there was blue sky. High of about 17C.
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| The back of our apartment building- main floor windows are ours |
We decided to walk to the Ibsen Museum & Theatre but meander along the way. Jet lag had finally caught up with us, so we slept in and had a late start to the day.
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| Walking by 'Coffee and Cigarettes' |
Our map had directed us to a piece of public art (from 2013) commemorating the terror attack on July 22, 2011 against the government and young people attending the Worker's Youth League summer camp on the nearby island of Utoya. The art installation was supposed to be in front of the Regjeringskvartalet (the executive government quarter of Norway). Unfortunately, we couldn't find the art (we checked later on Google and the art installation has recently been removed), but at the same address we saw a sign for the July 22 Centre, a commemoration and learning centre that addresses the terror attacks.
We went in and were greeted by a woman who gave us an introduction to the centre. It is a learning centre with a clear social mission to strengthen students' knowledge of democracy and to ensure that knowledge about the reasons for the events of July 22, 2011 are disseminated to new generations. The terrorist attacks are part of the school curriculum and thousands of students from all over Norway visit the centre.
The 22 July Centre opened in 2015 at the scene of the first attack in a High-rise government building. Due to restoration of the Government Quarter, the Centre moved to nearby temporary premises in June 2020, which is where we saw the exhibit. It will return to the High-rise government building in 2025/26.
The exhibit consists of mainly story boards detailing the events; incredible footage of the Oslo bomb area minutes before the blast; and moving personal testimonies from a number of the survivors from the summer camp. Briefly, on July 22, 2011, at 3:26 p.m. a car bomb exploded a short distance from the Government Office Complex in the centre of Oslo killing eight people and injuring hundreds. As the rescue was continuing, police received reports of gunshots on the resort island of Utøya, some 40 km to the northwest. At 5:00 p.m., a man dressed as a police officer took the ferry to the island. He gained access to a youth camp hosted by the Norwegian Labour Party. Armed with an automatic rifle and a pistol, the gunman spent the next hour methodically targeting the roughly 600 people at the camp. Most were teenagers. By the time police arrived on the island at 6:25 p.m., 69 people had been killed. Anders Behring Breivik, a 32 year-old Norwegian right-wing terrorist, was captured and ultimately convicted of the shootings.
On August 12, 2012, the court ruled he was sane at the time of the attacks and he received the maximum sentence of 21 years in prison. Five-year terms can be added at the end of that time, if he continues to constitute a danger to society. A subsequent inquiry into the attacks completed in August 2012 harshly criticized the actions of law enforcement and found that the police could have prevented the incident or disrupted it as it was occurring on Otøyo.
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| From the Court verdict |
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| Piece of clock shattered in the Oslo bombing |
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| Procession on July 25 after the attack |
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| Questions raised in the Centre |
One of the testimonies we listened to was from a teenager at the Utøya camp, who was in a room with a close friend and another young boy. The gunman entered and shot all three of them. Her friend and the young boy were killed. She recovered and lost part of a finger, has a scar from a bullet hole in her shoulder and another scar on her neck. The psychological scars are clearly there as she describes the terror of her friend just before the gunman entered the room.
A section of the centre had a display of the front pages from the Norwegian media following the shooting. One reporter interviewed talked about the mistakes the media made in calling people on the island, who may have been in hiding. There was also the disbelief that the shooter could be Norwegian.
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| Media display at the Centre |
We spent some time at the Centre and then carried on walking to the Ibsen Museum.
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| We passed the University of Oslo--- founded in 1811, when Norway was still under Danish rule |
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| These lovely planters are found throughout Oslo |
We finally got to the Ibsen Museum and Theatre which contains the renovated apartment where Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) and his wife Suzannah (1836-1914) lived for Ibsen's last 11 years (1895-1906) and where he wrote his last two dramas.
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| Signage outside the building |
We arrived just after 4:30 p.m. and were told that the last tour was at 5:00 p.m. It was suggested that we go up to a small exhibit room (which had once been a bedroom) where there were poster displays about all of Ibsen's plays.
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| Peter Gynt, 1867 |
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| An Enemy of the People, 1882 |
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| The Wild Duck, 1884 |
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| Enlarged summary of The Wild Duck |
Our tour of Ibsen's apartment was excellent. His apartment was one of the largest in Oslo at around 350 sq metres. It was across from the Royal Palace. After 27 years of self-imposed exile further south in Europe, Ibsen moved back to Oslo in 1891. He died in the apartment in 1906 and after his wife Suzannah died in 1914, their home was dismantled, and their furniture scattered (some went to a cultural museum). The restored and refurnished apartment has been open to the public since 1994, and updated in 2006 and 2023. A lot of the furniture is original. A new small theatre recently opened in part of the building and a few of Ibsen's plays have been staged there. Unfortunately, funds have not been available for any new performances.
The first room we saw was the study, which we could not enter as it had all original furniture. Ibsen had a huge portrait of August Strindberg (1849-1912) in his study, even though they were arch enemies. He kept it there to spur him to write. He dubbed the portrait "Madness incipient."
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| Portrait of Strindberg on the right wall |
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Another view of the study- their son, Sigurd, is portrayed in the smaller picture on the centre-right part of the wall (with white shirt). Sigurd (1859-1930), was a writer, lawyer and statesman who served as the prime minister of Norway in Stockholm (1903-1905) (ie the leader of the Norwegian delegation to the King of Sweden and Norway) and played a central role in the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905.
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| The sitting room with dark walls and lots of furniture (style in other parts of Europe) |
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| Our guide in the sitting room, which was not used very much |
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| Another room that was only used at Christmas time |
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| Dining area was used |
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| There was a small library, which had original furniture that we could not enter |
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| Reflection in library room- chair where Suzannah died |
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| Suzannah's bedroom |
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| Other side of Suzannah's bedroom |
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| Outside the National Theatre-- Ibsen is on the left. Our guide at his apartment said that Ibsen took it all gracefully and thought that his statue was better than Bjørnson's. They were great rivals but also friends. |
We stopped at United Bakers for a coffee and treat. We definitely needed a break.
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| Scone for Allan and Cardamon bun for me |
We decided to take the tram back to our apartment, as we were both tired. Public transport is very good in Oslo. We booked our tickets through the App and only had a two minute wait for the next tram. Allan prepared a charcuterie plate for dinner and I worked on the blog. Of course, we were up in the middle of the night to check the Blue Jays score. Oslo is a beautiful and most interesting city and it looks like we may have sun for the next few days.
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