Rebecka Fallenkvist, a Sweden Democrat official, was suspended after she made a social media post labeling Anne Frank, a Jewish diarist and major historical figure, as “immoral.” Frank wrote a diary which was then published as “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl” while hiding from Nazis in a secret annex of her father Otto Frank’s business building in Amsterdam during World War II.
The social media post shows a photo of Frank’s book, along with a caption that reads: “Even if you are not ready for the day, it cannot always be night” which is written in English. In Swedish Fallenkvist writes of the book: “50 pages in and so far Anne Frank has only struck me as morally hindered. The stubbornness itself.”
In addition to her criticism of the 15-year-old girl who died in Nazi Germany’s Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, Fallenkvist also linked her post to a song by American rapper Kanye West who has come under criticism in recent days for sharing antisemitic views and opinions across social media and in interviews.
“I strongly condemn this despicable insult, disrespectful of the memory of Anne Frank. It comes in sharp contrast to Sweden’s efforts to preserve the memory of the Holocause. Unfortunately, there are many more bad weeds that must be uprooted,” wrote Kulman, the Israeli ambassador to Sweden, who shared an image of the disturbing social media post to Twitter.
Oskar Cavalli-Bjorkman, the media director of the Sweden Democrats, told a Swedish news agency that their party would be launching an internal investigation into Fallenkvist’s “insensitive and inappropriate” social media post.
“The book is a moving depiction of human good and evil,” Fallenkvist wrote to Dagens Nyheter, a Swedish newspaper, in an effort to defend herself. “The good Anne, who in the first chapters is like any other young girl living her life in peace and finding an interest in boys (which I highlighted), is contrasted with the evil of Nazism. My story was aimed at the good and human in Anne while not playing down the evil to which she was subjected."
Sweden Democrats is a nationalist, right-wing political party that was first formed in the 1980s by political extremists, including neo-Nazis. It is Sweden’s second-largest party and is led by Swedish politician and author Jimmi Akesson, who is 43.
The party has moved towards mainstream politics, AP News reports, but holds a hard stance on immigration policies, advocating for stronger restrictions. On Friday, three center-right parties in Sweden agreed to form a three-party minority government with the help of the Sweden Democrats.