Yesterday it was ten years since a fire took 63 young lives at a disco in Gothenburg, Sweden. Here is a link to images.
About four hundred kids and youths in an area limited to one hundred and fifty.
Two doors leading out, one blocked with smoke and fire.
A reporter sticks his microphone up in the face of a police officer in charge asking if anybody has died. The police officer answers that he would estimate to thirty so far. "Dead?!" the reporter replies quite chocked.
There were interviews yesterday, in the morning paper and TV. “What do you remember?” “How is your life going now?”
The firefighter getting inside by a window, only to realize that the windows are two meters up from the floor. No way they could use the windows for rescue quick enough.
The boy in a pile with people in panic by the door who suddenly realizes that the girl on top of him is dead.
The cell phones ringing under the sheets covering the dead that had been brought out.
What I personly remember most were the hate against those who did it.
At first there where speculations that it had been terrorists or Nazis (there were lots of immigrants at the disco). It wasn’t. It was a few teenage boys who wanted to be at the disco but they were not let it. Pissed off they decide to ruin the party for the others and start a little fire with the aim to just activate the smoke detector.
These young men were the target for so much hate.
They got jail-time of course. Too short time many said. Kill them others said. (Sweden have not had capital punishment since 1910 – written in the law in 1921.)
Hate leads to no good. No good things appear from hate. Hate does not bring the dead back.
They did not intend to kill 63 people. They made a foolish and stupid mistake that got severe consequences. And they have to live with that mistake.
As for those youths who arranged the disco without thinking about the possibility of fire and panic.
Photo by Matthew Bowden
www.digitallyrefreshing.com
Edited by the writer
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