One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway Read Online Free PDF Page A

techniques were used to suppress her in the run-up to the general election in the autumn of 1981. Her opponents in debates often countered her statements by referring to what ‘others in the party’ had said. Epithets like ‘shrew’ and ‘virago’ were bandied about and stickers started appearing in windows and cars bearingthe simple slogan ‘Kick Her Out’.
    She received hate mail and insults were hurled at her in the street; a woman could not lead a country . When told to get back to the kitchen sink, Brundtland’s style was to brush such comments aside. An authoritative figure, she rarely let herself be knocked off course.
    The ‘Kick Her Out’ stickers were in particular evidence on the BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes inthe areas of detached houses and elegant apartment blocks in Oslo West, where people were tired of Labour being almost continually in power.
    It was the area where Wenche and her children lived.
    Labour and Gro failed to win the voters’ confidence in the September 1981 election. When the right won its first general election in post-war Norway, glasses were raised in the homes of Frogner.
    Finallytaxes would come down, and the focus would be on individual freedoms.
    But the Breivik family needed the help of the welfare state. By then, Anders’s mother had already been in touch with social services several times, asking for help. As a single mother she was defined as vulnerable and the state would therefore step in to provide financial support.
    The new conservative regime removed interest-ratecaps, gave banks more room for manoeuvre, deregulated property prices and made plans to privatise a variety of services.
    As Gro began her determined struggle to get back into power, Wenche and the children were struggling to find a foothold in a day-to-day existence that seemed like quicksand. ‘Hell’ was Wenche’s word for life at that time. The divorce papers were taking an age to come throughand she felt caught in limbo, left alone with sole responsibility for the children and no home of her own. The wrangling over how their shared assets were to be divided intensified. Anders just wanted somewhere he could feel safe.
    Later, it was Gro, the powerful woman of his childhood, who would be the target of his hate. The woman who symbolised the new, self-confident Norway. The new Norwayin which young women would soon be storming the bastions of male power and boldly taking top positions as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

 
Silkestrå
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
    Five rooms for the family of three. Plenty of space, bright, modern and brand-new. A room each, with doors they could close, a living room where they could have guests, a kitchen and a balcony looking out over the play area in the ‘blue garden’ between the flats. The new housingcooperative behind the Frogner Park had been designed with families in mind. The three-storey apartment blocks extended across the green parkland in a maze-like layout, with sheltered spaces, footpaths and little garden areas, where the benches, slides and swings were painted bright colours.
    The cooperative went by the appealing name of Silkestrå – Silken Straw – and Wenche was one of the firstbuyers.
    It was thanks to Jens’s membership of the Oslo Housing and Savings Society that they got the opportunity to buy a stake there. He also paid the deposit on the flat.
    Moving out of Fritzners gate seemed to take for ever. Wenche did all the packing herself. First in newspaper, then in boxes. She threw out her old life, the letters and papers she had accumulated in drawers and cupboards.
    Once they were finally installed in the light flat on the top floor in Silkestrå, Wenche was able to breathe a sigh of relief. She could go out for a smoke on the balcony and she could see trees and sky, a real middle-class idyll. Just behind the block of flats there was a patch of woodland with