Sissi (14) killed July 22: This is how the family copes with grief

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Terrorist attack

11 years later, Dagbladet meets her family at home in Drammen.

It is now 10 years since the then 14-year-old girl became the youngest victim in the terrorist attack on Utøya on 22 July 2011.

A man who the following year received a 21-year custodial sentence for mass murder of 77 people, was behind the terrorist attacks.

– Actually, we do not need any more discussion about him. We do not need what he stood for, says Sissi’s sister Savannah (17).

She looks like Sissi, with long dark curly hair. Her sister, Sydney (11), is even more similar.

Lost little brother: – Has displaced a lot

– Had I known …

Before the attack on Utøya, the three sisters – all with first names beginning with S – and the parents were an almost complete nuclear family.

– We only needed the dog, says the father, Drammen resident Odd Roger Bøhn.

Vanessa’s mother puts a picture of a five-month-old Sissi on the living room table. It is from the beach in Mount Maunganui that the mother is from. In the picture, she is one year younger than the youngest girl Sydney was when Sissi was killed. Vanessa thinks it’s a beautiful memory.

– If I had known that Sissi’s life would end like that, we would never have come to Norway, says Vanessa, who grew up in a Norwegian-Maori family in New Zealand.

She has half the family there, and the rest at Sunndalsøra.

– We are here. As far as

With all the humor, smiles, the well-thought-out reasoning, the Svebakk-Bøhn family seems harmonious for those who meet them for the first time.

That they have had to fight through the years after the terrorist attack – and that they still do – takes longer to find out.

– We’re here today. Barely. We have chosen to live the life that Sissi did not get, says Vanessa.

Ten years after July 22, 2011, the family talks in Dagbladet about how they have managed through these years – and about who and what they think is worth remembering after the worst terrorist attack in Norway in peacetime.

The respite

When they lost Sissi, the family made a choice that must have surprised many.

After a 16-week trial – Vanessa thinks it should have worked with a confession sentence, which takes much less time – the family had had enough. After 18 months, they felt that it had become so much, and that the victims came in the background.

Survived Utøya: – Very tough

– Putting more focus on those who were killed does not remove focus from what happened, says Odd Roger.

The press insisted on interviews. They were constantly reminded of the terrible thing that had happened.

They needed a respite, and on February 7, 2013, they set out on a journey around the world that lasted a year.

About those who struggle

It was a fantastic journey, although it was also difficult to leave Norway while they worked through the grief and missed.

– We spent a whole year taking care of each other and especially our two little girls. We found out that we wanted Sissi with us wherever we went, and that the memories were not local to Drammen, Vanessa says.

She is happy to have done so, but also worried about all the survivors who have had to work full time at the same time as they have struggled with grief. Or even worse: Who has not been able to work.

This is how the victims’ rooms are now

Vanessa believes that there is a great lack of socio-psychological measures for the bereaved.

– One in three survivors is incapacitated for work. What is it, in a country like Norway ?, she asks, and says that many of them struggle with trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

She fears that many have not received the follow-up and facilitation they need.

The most difficult

– 10 years after the worst day of our lives, there are very many who are still struggling, says Vanessa. She believes that the need for help is greater now than ten years ago, because it has so far been given too little priority.

The most difficult thing, however, is that no one can help.

– In grief, standing in everyday things is one of the most difficult things to do. And you can not order someone who can celebrate Christmas for you. Or halloween. You have to stand for it yourself, says Vanessa.

This became easier for the Svebakk-Bøhn family when they set out on the journey, and could spend their days together. Half the time, they were in Vanessa’s first home country, New Zealand.

They were also in London, Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, Bali, Australia and the United States and several other places. Sissi was with us all the way.

One of the best memories is from the Great Wall of China.

Beautiful – and painful

In order for them to have summer all the way, they had decided to follow the sun. But one day in China, Savannah suddenly said she missed snow.

The next day they were going to the Great Wall of China, waking up to snow. Odd Roger tells about the sun that broke through the clouds and thawed the snow along the huge structure.

– Should be a scar

– It was so beautiful, he says.

– It was when we stood there on the wall that the tears came. It was the first time that it dawned on me that “this is an experience that Sissi will never have”, says Vanessa.

When Dagbladet asks Sydney what she remembers from the trip, she answers “nothing”. But she thinks the pictures from the Forbidden City in Beijing are cool.

Can’t remember Sissi

Because she was so small when Sissi was killed, Sydney can not remember anything about her either. For the parents, it is one of the most painful.

So is Sydney.

– If what happened on July 22 had not happened, I would have had my own memories, she says quietly.

But after receiving a hug from her mother, she goes to play with her friend Anastasia, who is visiting.

Best friend

The family returned home from the trip around the world, and went on with their normal lives. Savannah continued to follow in her eldest sister’s footsteps.

– She was my best friend, and I miss her every single day, she says when we have joined the family at Sissi’s grave.

In recent years, Savannah has often visited the grave, at times several times a week. Then she sat down and “talked” to Sissi, about what was happening, about what she would have done.

– People wish I was shot

But when she turned 14 three years ago – as old as Sissi was when she was killed – she thought she was where Sissi’s footsteps ended.

Savannah persuaded her parents to accept that she went to spend the night at a summer camp on Utøya in 2018, to do what Sissi never got to do: To go back home to her parents.

The labor movement

– It was fun on Utøya. And I’m still in AUF, says Savannah.

In this way, she continues an old family tradition:

All the way back to Sissi, Savannah and Sydney’s great-great-grandfather, the family has been associated with the labor movement – but in different ways.

– I am not an active member, and I do not plan to be. Sissi felt exactly the same way. She went to Utøya to have a good time, to get to know people, and to get away from us in the family, says Savannah.

– From whom? says Vanessa teasing.

– Ok. From me, Savannah admits.

They explain that Sissi that summer had had the job of looking after the little sisters Savannah and Sydney – and that she was very ready for a few days alone.

– Sissi had fun

– Our daughter had a lot of fun on Utøya, until the day she was killed. I do not think there are many who do not have fun on Utøya. What teenager would not have fun, a week away from her parents, Vanessa asks and laughs.

But she quickly becomes serious.

– Sissi was shot twice in the back while she was running. Some of those who died were shot five or eight times. It was vicious. We talk about Sissi to remember our daughter and remember the person who passed away. Her lived life, which we miss, has nothing to do with politics, says Vanessa.

Was afraid of being shot in the open street

She believes that the settlement with the culprit was over the day he received his sentence. Now she thinks the terrorist and what he stood for get too much attention – at the expense of the victims.

– July 22 will be stronger if you understand that those who lost their lives had a valuable life, says Odd Roger.

Greeted Gro

Even much of the day on July 22, 2011, which later became the worst day in so many people’s lives, Sissi had a good time on Utøya.

– Even that Friday, when it rained so much, Sissi had fun. This evil, it took someone else with it, says Vanessa.

When Sissi was to be buried a few days later, former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland came to the funeral.

Then Gro said that Sissi had come to her on Utøya and said: “Hi, my name is Sissi, and my mum is from New Zealand”, Vanessa says.

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