I sat in room 250 for the ten weeks of the trial. Within those walls we were drip-fed the details of the planning and execution of the act of terrorism, day by day. The testimonies were short, concise, tailored to the purposes of the trial. Sometimes they went deep, sometimes they broadened out. At times they supplemented each other and gave new perspectives while at others they stood alone. A witness could be in the box for ten or fifteen minutes, to be succeeded by another witness. These were drops of stories.
After the trial had finished, I realised I had to go deeper to find out what had really happened, and I started searching.
I found Simon, Anders and Viljar. I found Bano and Lara.
This is their story.
One of Us has come about thanks to all those who told me their stories. Some have chapters devoted to their childhood and youth while others appear as part of a background canvas of friends, neighbours, teachers, classmates, boy and girlfriends, colleagues, bosses and relations.
Parents and siblings have shared their family histories. Friends have spoken of comradeship.
We collaborated on a continuous basis. They all read their texts along the way. Still, I was met with great understanding that this is my book and my interpretation.
Some of the conversations went on for days and nights, others were short phone calls. We talked on the way down from a steep mountain, on long walks along the Bardu River, in bars in Tromsø or over Kurdish chicken stew in Nesodden.
I offer heartfelt thanks to those who shared the most. Bayan, Ali, Mustafa and Lara Rashid. Gerd, Viggo and Stian Kristiansen. Tone, Gunnar and Håvard Sæbø. And Viljar Hanssen and his family. They have told me about the worst thing of alclass="underline" losing someone they loved.
Whether the stories are cut down to a few lines or cover several pages, it is the multitude of conversations that have made this book possible. Thank you all so much. I know what it cost you.
Most people are given their full name in the book, while some are referred to by their first names, like Marte and Maria. I felt it was right to use first names for the scene when the two childhood friends are holding hands, lying on the path. Their full names are Marte Fevang Smith and Maria Maagerø Johannesen. Marte was the only survivor of the eleven who were shot on Lovers’ Path. The bullet did not cause any major injuries to her head, only to her balance nerve. She can’t dance like she did before, while her best friend Maria died. What I have written about events on the path before and during the killing is based on what Marte remembers.
The first time I mention someone, I have usually put down their full name. Some people do not appear in the book until ‘Friday’ – the chapter about 22 July – and disappear from the account the moment they are killed. These were the most painful parts of the book to send to their families. I asked all the parents affected to read the sections about their children and choose for themselves whether they wanted their child to be part of the book. For me, it was important to describe for posterity exactly how that day was. In the end, no parent objected that I wrote about their child’s moment of death. I am very grateful for that.
The surviving young people who contributed to the book were also sent their texts to read through and correct.
The other strand of this book is that man. A man many are reluctant to refer to by name. The perpetrator, the subject under observation, the accused, the defendant and finally: the sentenced prisoner. I do use his name. When writing about his childhood it was natural to use his first name; from 22 July onwards I use his surname or full name.
In journalism, it is important to go to the sources. This was the reason for my request for an interview with him. Its refusal obliged me to base my account on what others say about him. I talked to his friends, members of his family, classmates, colleagues and former political associates. I read what he himself had written: in the manifesto, on the internet and in letters. I also paid attention to what he had to say during the trial, and what he subsequently wrote in letters to the press and in official complaints.
Many of those close to him were unwilling to say anything. Some slammed down the phone. Others replied, ‘I’ve put him behind me. I’m through with him.’
I was not through with him, and eventually I found people who would talk, most of them anonymously. Very few of his former friends and classmates are named in this book. It is as though having known him leaves one branded. Even so, a number of people made important contributions to my understanding of what Anders Behring Breivik was like in childhood, adolescence and adult life. In the chapter about his time as a tagger, those described are given their actual tagging names and will thus be recognised within their own circles. In the chapter on the Progress Party, no one demanded anonymity. I have given two business partners and two childhood friends new names.
I tried for a year to secure an interview with Wenche Behring Breivik but her answer, through her lawyer Ragnhild Torgersen, was always the same: No.
In March 2013, I called her lawyer again. She said she would talk to her client one more time. Torgersen rang back: ‘Can you come to my office tomorrow?’
I was allowed to meet Wenche Behring Breivik on the condition that she and her lawyer be allowed to read through the interview afterwards. The agreement was that if Wenche Behring Breivik were incapable of reading through it herself – her cancer had entered its final phase – her lawyer would do it. This she did, and approved the use of the interview. Torgersen was also present during our conversation, and both of us recorded it. Parts of the interview appear in question-and-answer format; other parts are used to shed light on her son’s childhood in the chapters about his early life.
Several times I also requested a meeting with Jens David Breivik, the perpetrator’s father, but he would not be interviewed. I therefore had to restrict myself to what others told me about him. It was only when I sent him, in its entirety, what I had written about him that I was able to enter into a dialogue with him, in which he corrected items he felt were wrong and gave me new information about his son.
Reports from the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry were an invaluable source of information about Anders Behring Breivik’s childhood. I also talked to the professionals who observed him in that period. I judged this case to be so much in the public interest that it justified using information from confidential reports.
In addition, reports from the expert psychiatrists associated with the trial, Synne Sørheim and Torgeir Husby, Terje Tørrissen and Agnar Aspaas, were extremely helpful. The accounts of what took place in their meetings with Breivik are taken from their reports. Parts of these reports have appeared in the media in printed form; I worked from the uncensored versions.
I also made extensive use of the police interviews in the case. I had tens of thousands of pages of interviews, witness statements and background documents to read through and select from. In some instances I have used direct quotations from the interrogations. This applies to the interrogations of the perpetrator on Utøya and at police headquarters in Oslo, and to the interviews with his mother when she was brought in on 22 July, both in the police car and later that same evening at the police headquarters. The conversations between Anders and his mother in the months leading up to his move to the farm, and later on in the wake of 22 July, are reconstructed from what Wenche told investigators during the autumn of 2011. I have elected to make use of these documents that are not publicly available because I consider it justified by the vital importance of casting light on this terrorism case.