Lukáš Houdek. Anglická verze podcastové série o lidech, kteří v roce 2011 prožili útoky v Norsku. Jak dnes žijí ti, jimž do životů zasáhly teroristické útoky v norském hlavním městě a na ostrově Utøya? Dramaturg Jakub Horáček. Zvuk Radim Dlesk. Zvukový design Adam Voneš. Produkce Petra Kupcová.
Natočeno 2023. Webová premiéra 1. dílu 14. 11. 2023 (ČRo Rádio Wave, 31 min.).
Lit.: Houdek, Lukáš: Presenting Surviving Utøya and Oslo. A podcast about the people who lived through the 2011 Norway attacks. In web ČRo Radio Wave, 8. listopad 2023 (článek + teaser k poslechu). – Cit.: What is life like now for those whose lives were forever changed by the terrorist attacks in the Norwegian capital and on the island of Utøya?
“When the news of the Norway attacks in Oslo and on Utøya island circled the world in July 2011, I was absolutely in shock. I followed the news intently online and watched all the Czech Television coverage,” says Lukáš Houdek, documentarist and author of the series Surviving Utøya and Oslo. Starting November 14th, the seven-episode documentary podcast follows Lukáš as he narrates the stories of those who survived the attacks and those whose loved ones never came home.
News about the attacks and their consequences gradually started to dissipate. More recent events took their place. Occasionally, news would surface about the trial with the terrorist or his prison conditions. But life went on. What happened after? Once the world stopped paying attention? That’s precisely what documentarist Lukáš Houdek travelled to Norway to find out this May and June, nearly twelve years after the fact. He spoke with survivors of the attacks in the Oslo government quarter and on Utøya island, as well as with people who lost their loved ones that day.
Episode 1 delves into the attacks themselves through the eyes of those whose lives were irreversibly affected. Substantiating context is then added by Norwegian experts. The seventh and final episode explores the aftereffects of July 22nd on Norwegian society, looks at how Norway dealt with the terrorist himself and portrays the fate of Utøya island today. As for Episodes 2-5, they reveal intimate portraits of survivors and the bereaved. (…)
Lukáš Houdek is a documentarist and artist. He graduated from the Romani Studies program at Charles Univeristy, Faculty of Arts and is the Head Manager of the HateFree Cutlure campaign. In his artwork, he primarily engages with topics of identity, violence, hate and injustice. Lukáš is the author of a number of radio documentaries and podcasts. His audio-documentary for Czech Radio White Brings Death (Bíla nosí smrt) about the stigmatization of people with albinism in Ghana earned him the 2019 Journalism Award from the Czech Open Society Fund. At this year’s Prix Bohemia Radio, Lukáš placed third with his audio-documentary about Kateřina Gamal Richterová, a Czech Muslim woman.
Yet their stories are not just about pain and grief, but also about resilience and the will to go on. They are not just about surviving the terrorist attacks, but more so about surviving what came after. Aside from the life stories directly impacted by the attacks, the series also illustrates how that day changed Norway itself. Lukáš Houdek speaks with experts from a variety of fields about how Norway, in so many ways an inspiring country, has dealt with the attacks. How did it handle the terrorist? And what is the island of Utøya like today?
The seven-episode podcast series Surviving Utøya and Oslo searches for the answers to all these questions. For the first time ever, Radio Wave is releasing the series in both its English-language original, as well as a Czech version. Actresses Denisa Barešová, Miluše Šplechtová, Jitka Smutná and Milena Steinmasslová and actors Jan Nedbal and Filip Rajmont lend their voices to the Czech translation.
What happened after, once the world stopped paying attention? Listen to Lukáš Houdek’s series Surviving Utøya and Oslo.
On the afternoon of July 22nd, 2011, the roughly-thirty-year-old Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik detonated nearly a ton of explosives in a white van parked in the government quarter in the center of Oslo. He killed eight people. Less than two hours later on the island of Utøya, amidst a summer camp organized by the youth wing of the then-ruling Labour Party, he shot dead 69 young people.
Lit.: Houdek, Lukáš: “The policeman shot my friend three times at close range.” What exactly happened on the island of Utøya and in Oslo? In web ČRo Radio Wave, 14. listopad 2023 (článek + nahrávka k poslechu). – Cit.: Friday the 22nd of July, 2011 began as a normal Norwegian summer vacation day. Everything changed after 3pm, when a white van pulled up to a government building in the center of Oslo. This set into a motion a series of events that forever altered Norway. Episode 1 of the seven-part podcast series Surviving Utøya and Oslo tells the horrific story of what happened that day. Against the backdrop of official news reporting, the story is told by those who experienced it firsthand.
“It was raining a bit that day,” recalls security guard Tore Inge, who was working at the main government building in Oslo at the time. At 3:17pm, a white van stopped in front of the Prime Minister’s office. “They called us from the reception, because they didn’t know who the van belonged to. And so we started looking for the driver on our CCTV footage,” explains Tore Inge. As he was examining the license plate through the camera, the van exploded. It contained nearly a ton of explosives. “I was in my office. Suddenly there was a terribly loud noise. I just stood there, unable to do anything. I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. So much. There was debris everywhere,” recounts now 57-year-old administrator Nille, who was just tens of meters from the explosion’s epicenter. “After the explosion, chaos ensued. It looked like a war zone outside. There was broken glass everywhere, and dead and wounded people,” adds Tore Inge. The explosion in the government quarter cost eight people their lives. (…)
Around 4pm, news of the explosion reached the island of Utøya – roughly a half-hour drive from the capital – where nearly 600 young people were taking part in a summer camp. It was a camp that was organized yearly by the youth branch of the ruling Labour Party. While the campers, mostly children, were trying to figure out what had happened and if there friends and relatives were alright, they heard the first gunshots.
On the afternoon of July 22nd, 2011, the roughly-thirty-year-old Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik detonated nearly a ton of explosives in a white van parked in the government quarter in the center of Oslo. He killed eight people. Less than two hours later on the island of Utoya, amidst a summer camp organized by the youth wing of the then-ruling Labour Party, he shot dead 69 young people.
“I was sitting in the main building. Suddenly a gunshot rang out and a crowd of people ran inside,” remembers Tore, who was just over twenty at the time. “We saw someone coming up the hill. He was wearing a police uniform, so no one was afraid of him. Until he started shooting,” recounts Cecilia. Fair-haired lawyer Jorgen adds: “We were just at the tent campsite. We saw a mass of people running toward us. We couldn’t stop them. They were running in panic. Suddenly we saw a police officer coming our way. So I started walking towards him. When I was about 15 meters from him, my friend came up to him first. He shot her three times.”
First reports of the shooting on Utøya island were meanwhile reaching the camper’s parents and families. They were in disbelief. “We were driving to pick up some sushi for dinner. And that’s when we heard about the shooting on Utøya. I had spoken to Cecilia a bit earlier and I knew her phone was out of battery. So I had no way of calling her to find out if she was alive or not,” recalls Cecilia’s mother Eileen. Unni, mother of 16-year-old Andrine, found out about the attacks directly from her daughter. “She called me, crying: ‘Mom, someone is shooting!’ I went to my husband: ‘Andrine says that there’s a shooting on Utøya. That can’t be. That’s insane!’”
From the first gunshot to the arrival of the police and the arrest of the assailant, more than an hour and 15 minutes went by. The terrorist murdered 69 young people and injured tens of others. Why did the police arrive so late? Who was the attacker and what was his motivation? And how did Norwegian society react in the immediate aftermath of the attacks? Listen to the first episode of the podcast series Surviving Utøya and Oslo.