The six-day bank siege that inspired the controversial Stockholm Syndrome theory began on 23 August 1973. In 1980, a BBC documentary featured two pioneering New York police negotiators who had built their careers on the lessons they had learnt from hostage situations past, including this bizarre robbery attempt. "But Sven, it's only in the leg.
" Those were the words of Kristin Enmark, 23, who was one of four people being held hostage at gunpoint in a Swedish bank. It was day two of the siege, and robber Jan-Erik Olsson wanted to show the police he meant business by shooting her terrified bank colleague Sven Säfström. Enmark told the BBC's Witness History in 2016: "Jan said to him, 'I'm not going to hurt any bones in your leg; I'm just going to shoot in the part that is not going to make so much injury'.
" Looking back, she struggled to comprehend her callous reaction. She said: "In that situation, I thought that he was somehow being a coward, not letting himself be shot in the leg. I think it's awful for me to think that and to say that, but I also think it shows what can happen to people when they are in a situation that is so absurd.
It is a situation that makes this moral shift. I really feel ashamed about this." Although Olsson did not carry out his plan, Säfström later admitted he had also felt grateful to his captors , and had to force himself to remember these were violent criminals and not his friends.
The term Stockholm Syndrome was coined in the aftermath of .