DENMARK 2001-2

 

The heightened conflict between Israel and the Palestinians continued to have negative repercussions for the Jewish community in Denmark in 2001, and several violent incidents were recorded. Public criticism of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians has sometimes assumed an antisemitic character, causing a rise in anti-Jewish propaganda. The right-wing Danish People’s Party, which ran on an anti-Muslim platform in the autumn general election, became the third largest party in the parliament.

 

the jewish community

There are 7,000 Jews in Denmark, out of a total population of 5.25 million. Most Jews are concentrated in Copenhagen, but smaller communities exist in Odense and Aarhus. About one-third are Polish Jews (or their children) who found sanctuary in Denmark after the antisemitic campaign in communist Poland in 1968. The central communal organization is the Mosaiske Troessamfund. The community operates one synagogue as well as the Caroline Jewish Day School (established in 1805). Jodisk Orientering is the main Jewish publication.

 

political organizations and EXTRA-parliamentary groups

Right-Wing Parties

Issues related to immigrants and refugees were the focus of party campaigns for the general election held in autumn 2001. The right-wing Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti – DPP) of Pia Kjaersgaard, which ran on an anti-Muslim platform, won 22 seats, becoming the third largest party in the Folketing (parliament). Since the liberal-conservative coalition government is dependent on the DDP for a parliamentary majority, the party’s voice carries weight on key issues, especially those concerning immigrants. The Progress Party (Fremskridtspartiet), which was particularly vocal in promoting anti-Muslim views, failed to win any seats.

Accusations of xenophobia have been leveled by left-wing parties, as well as by Sweden and other EU countries, against the liberal-conservative government, which further tightened Danish immigration policy after coming to office (see ASW 2000/1). Responding to this criticism, Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen stated to Magbit, the magazine of Den Danske Israelsindsmling (connected to the Jewish fund-raising organization Keren Hayasod and to the Danish-Israel Friendship Organization): “We must fight against any fledging nationalism, racism or persecution of those who do not share our views and opinions, because it is in fanatical nationalism and racism that the seed of genocide lurks.”

The artist Elin Uttrup ran as a candidate for the Progress Party. She is a member of the Danish Society for Free Historical Research, which maintains that the Holocaust is Zionist propaganda and that the Jews were not exterminated during World War II.

The neo-Nazi Danish National Socialist Party (DNSB) ran for the first time in a county council election, in November 2001. It put up candidates, led by DNSB head Jonni Hansen, for Roskilde (south of Copenhagen) county council, but won no seats.

 

Islamist Groups

Hizb ut-Tahrir (Liberation Party) is a fundamentalist, trans-national Islamic movement that is anti-democratic, anti-American, anti-Israel and antisemitic (see also UK). In Denmark, it is estimated to have approximately 1,000, mainly young, members, led by spokesman Fadi Abdullatif, a Palestinian refugee, and Emir Shamil Degirmenci. Hizb ut-Tahrir has been successful in recruiting juvenile delinquents, whom they have “converted” from crime to Islam. The group publishes books, magazines, pamphlets and videos, and runs a highly professional Danish website. The Qur‘an quotation: “Kill [Jews – referred to as ‘monkeys’ and ‘swine’] where you find them, oh banish them from where they banished you. This is the only way our relations to the violent Jewish criminals should be: enmity, war, insurrection, struggle and turmoil” – has appeared in several issues of its magazine Khilafah and on its website and was distributed in 2002 on fliers. Several Danish individuals and organizations, among them representatives of the Jewish community, have lodged complaints to the police on the grounds that Hizb ut-Tahrir has infringed Section 266b of the Criminal Code (article on racism), and called for its disbandment. At the end of 2002 Fadi Abdullatif was convicted of propagating racist propaganda and of incitement to murder Jews and given a suspended jail sentence.

Several Danish and international experts have mentioned Hizb ut-Tahrir in connection with the recruitment of Taliban fighters and membership in the al-Qa‘ida terrorist network, because the party seems to attract people with a similar worldview.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is widely condemned among the Danish public, and the Folketing unanimously adopted a declaration on 25 October 2001 denouncing the organization, using terms such as “repulsive”, “horrifying” and “destructive to integration.”

 

Antisemitic Activity

Increased hostility toward Jews was noted by community leaders, who cited biased and often unfounded criticism of Israel and the rising number of immigrants and refugees in the country as principal factors. “Danes have become more aware of the aliens in our midst, and this includes Jews,” said Chief Rabbi Bent Lexner to the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten on 27 February 2001. “Many of our Danish friends and acquaintances and colleagues at work have started not only to make anti-Israel remarks, but also anti-Jewish remarks,” said another spokesman in the same report.

 

Violence, Vandalism, Harassment and Insults

The heightened conflict between Israel and the Palestinians continued to have negative repercussions for the Jewish community in Denmark. An Arab driver tried to run over a worshiper in front of the Copenhagen synagogue in June, and in July, young Palestinians threw stones at two Orthodox Jews who were visiting a multi-ethnic urban development in Odense, the third largest city in Denmark.

In August 2001, the apartment of an Israeli living in Sonderborg, Jutland, was burgled and vandalized following the publication of pro-Israeli comments he made to the newspaper Jydske Vestkysten. Unknown perpetrators spray-painted swastikas on the walls and smashed all the furniture. On the same day an American Jewish tourist wearing a kippa was attacked by Arab youths, receiving facial cuts. There were no arrests in connection with these attacks.

Another consequence of the Middle East situation has been the refusal by Muslims to be treated by doctors with Jewish names. Further, in August 2001, the principal of Rådmandsgade School in the multi-ethnic Norrebro neighbourhood of Copenhagen said the school could no longer function with both Jewish and Arab children amongst its population, and asked Jewish parents not to enroll their children in her school.

 

Propaganda

Public criticism of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians has sometimes assumed an antisemitic character, leading to a rise in anti-Jewish propaganda. Israel’s new ambassador to Denmark, Carmi Gillon, was the center of a stormy controversy in the country. Gillon, formerly chief of Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, was alleged to have permitted the torture of Arab suspects. Contrasting the welcome for Gillon in summer 2001 to that given PA Chairman Yassir Arafat earlier in the year, Erik Gutterman, chairman of a Jewish school for Russian immigrants, told the daily Jyllands-Posten in July 2001: “Things are completely out of proportion, and have more to do with an unconscious antisemitism than with an ambassador of relatively minor importance.”

A three-day conference was held in Copenhagen from 7 September, entitled “Islamic Institutions in a Non-Islamic Majority Society.” Some 250 Muslim scholars debated the relationship of Islam to globalization and new information technology. The conference was funded by Saudi Arabia. Although dialogue and tolerance was a main theme, the mufti of the Palestinian Authority, Ekrima Sabri, closed the conference with the following words: “God be with you. We are talking about three groups of martyrs, who have acted against Zionist unity [reference is to terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians carried out on 9 September]. These three operations caused the death of three Zionists, and about 100 wounded and injured. We pray to God Almighty that He will show mercy to the martyrs who have accomplished this.”

On Christmas Sunday, 30 December 2001, the provost of Copenhagen, Anders Gadegaard, delivered a sermon in the Copenhagen Cathedral, in which he compared “the ghastly story of Herod’s slaughter of innocent babes in Bethlehem” to the murder of “children, women and men ... by those who hold power over Bethlehem.” The sermon also appeared in the Danish left-wing daily Information.

            Former Chief Rabbi Bent Melchior accused Gadegaard of “the most serious and blatant antisemitism we recall having heard from a priest in Denmark.” Following a heated debate in the media and a conciliatory meeting at the bishop’s see between representatives of the church and the Jewish community, Gadegaard published a letter in several newspapers (Politiken, Jyllandsposten, 1 Feb. 2002, Kristeligt Dagblad, 2 Feb. 2002), in which he denied wishing to promote antisemitism and attempted to clarify his sermon.

The call for a boycott of Israeli goods, travel, sports and culture by the Sid trade union, in cooperation with the Danish-Palestinian Friendship Society, has had a very limited response.

 

Racist Incidents

The Police Intelligence Unit reported 101 incidents of racially motivated crime against foreigners in 2001, 53 of which took place in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the US. The figure for 2000 was 26 incidents and for 1999, 17, which was the lowest since 1992; the highest figure was 166 reported incidents in 1993. The unit did not provide an explanation for these widely varying statistics.

 

attitudes toward the holocaust and the nazi era

On 27 January 2002 the Danish Committee for Living History held a Holocaust memorial evening. Among the participants was Minister for Cultural Affairs Brian Mikkelsen.

Danish young people in general have a fair knowledge of the atrocities perpetrated by Nazi Germany, but are less knowledgeable about the events that preceded the Holocaust. These were the conclusions of a survey carried out by the Vilstrup Interactive research institute for the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the daily newspaper Politiken in early 2001, among 1,449 Danes between 15 and 35 years of age. Fifty-nine percent replied correctly that the Nazis killed six million Jews. 11 percent thought the figure was 11 million and 13 percent said one million. Thus, a total of 41 percent did not know how many Jews died in the Holocaust. This does not mean that young Danes deny the Holocaust, but it may be that historical facts are becoming increasingly blurred in their minds, particularly when they are subject to the propaganda of Holocaust deniers and denial groups, such as the Society for Free Historical Research.

As to the events leading up to the Holocaust, uncertainty was evident. Only 6 percent had heard of the Wansee Conference. However, when it was explained that the Wansee Conference was the forum at which the Nazis adopted a plan for the extermination of the Jews, the so-called Endlösung, in 1942, 78 percent replied that they had heard of the conference; 67 percent had heard of Kristallnacht in 1938, while 37 percent had heard of the Nuremberg Acts, which abolished the civil rights of Jews in 1935.

The survey showed that three out of four young Danes supported the adoption of laws against Nazi organizations, and that more than half perceived Nazism as a threat. They fared better than young Swedes in a similar survey carried out in 1997. (The results prompted the Swedish government to distribute a booklet on the Holocaust which. to date, has been printed in more than one million copies – see ASW 1999/2000.)

In March 2001, The Holocaust Industry, by the Jewish American historian Norman G. Finkelstein’s, was published in a Danish edition. Newspaper reviewers considered the book “unreasonably slanted and lopsided” (Jyllands-Posten), “full of reduction and quarter truths” (Weekendavisen), “untrustworthy” (Berlingske Tidende) and “a sloppy job” (Politiken).

The Icelandic historian Vilhjalmur Örn Vilhjalmson (who lives in Denmark) has debunked the myth of the well-known tale of Danish King Christian X riding around the streets of Copenhagen in 1942 during the German occupation, wearing a yellow armband a Star of David. Vilhjalmson began researching the subject after the tale of the king surfaced in early June 2001 during discussions of the Foreign Policy Committee of the US House of Representatives in connection with plans in Afghanistan to force non-Muslims to wear an identifying patch. The story was apparently circulated by Danish exiles in London and disseminated on 4 September 1942 by the Jewish Telegraph Bureau, possibly in response to negative reports about Christian X in the Allied press as a symbol of the feeble resistance in Denmark to Nazi Germany. Vilhjalmson has also conducted research into the Danish government’s policy during World War II of sending Jewish refugees back to Germany, even without being asked to do so by the Nazi government.

The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, inaugurated in August 2000, was almost shut down in 2001, due to a government economy drive. However, it was given sufficient funds to survive, at least in the short term. The center conducts research on, among other things, Denmark’s role in the persecution of Jews in the 1930s, and runs courses on antisemitism and Holocaust studies for high-school teachers.

 

responses to racism and antisemitism

In January 2001 the State Prosecutor’s Office brought charges against the Danish Nazi video production company NS88, run by Jesper Harmann, former Norwegian Nazi leader Erik Blücher and the late Marcel Schlif. The charges concern a video from 1998 showing the mock executions of prominent Danish anti-fascists, including the editor of Demos Newsletter (the Danish equivalent of Searchlight), as well as the publisher of Searchlight itself, Gerry Gable. For technical reasons the trial was held in Sweden, where the accused were acquitted on the grounds that the case was obsolete.

The District Attorney’s Office of Zealand decided in 2001 to bring charges of racism against three members of the DPP youth organization as well as a former member of the organization’s central committee, now a member of the Liberal Party, which leads the Danish coalition government. The four are alleged to be behind a poster campaign held in spring 2001, which showed three masked and blood-smeared Muslims, accompanied by the text “Gang rape, mayhem, disturbances, forced marriage, oppression of women and gangland crime – these are the things offered to us by a multi-ethnic society.” The poster appeared in the Copenhagen University student newspaper Studiemagasinet and was also disseminated via the DPP youth organization website. The charges were filed by the principal of the Technical University of Denmark on the grounds that the poster violated the racism article of the Criminal Code. The punishment for spreading racist propaganda in Denmark ranges from a fine to two years’ imprisonment. The verdict was due in the course of 2002.

Since 1992, Denmark’s police districts have been ordered to report racially or ethnically motivated crimes to the Police Intelligence Unit (PIU). The Danish National Police Commissioner stepped up surveillance at the beginning of 2002, and reportage to the PIU has been extended to include Danish victims of crimes based on religious motives.