A far-right Swedish politician and media personality shared a sexual Instagram story about Anne Frank, was criticized by many in the Jewish community and her membership in the party has been temporarily suspended.
“Fifty pages in and so far Anne Frank has only struck me as debauched, the horniness itself,” Sweden Democrat (SD) Rebecka Fallenkvist wrote on Instagram.
“Fifty pages in and so far Anne Frank has only struck me as debauched, the horniness itself.”
Rebecka Fallenkvist
The 26-year-old has been elected as a Sweden Democratic member in Region Stockholm in 2022 and has been hosting news programs on the Sweden Democrats’ YouTube channel, called Riks.
In the Instagram story, Fallenkvist also tagged a song by Kanye West, who has recently also been accused of antisemitism.
The Swedish Jewish Community's response
“We are obviously outraged and disgusted by this,” Nina Tojzner, secretary-general of the Jewish youth organization in Sweden told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday.
Tojzner’s organization shared a press release, stating that “normalizing a treacherous use of language and shameless trivialization of the suffering of Holocaust victims is indecent and undignified. This is even more serious, coming from a popularly elected politician who enjoys great influence.”
Responding to Fallenkvist’s comments, Israel’s Ambassador to Sweden Ziv Nevo Kulman tweeted that “I strongly condemn this despicable insult, disrespectful to the memory of Anne Frank.”
He added that this Instagram story “comes in sharp contrast to Sweden’s efforts to preserve the memory of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, there are many more bad weeds that must be uprooted.”
According to SVT Swedish news, the Sweden Democrats’ press director sent a comment that the party “is taking a serious look into Fallenkvist’s “insensitive and inappropriate jargon on social media,” and updated that an internal process has begun with the party’s HR department.
“Rebecka Fallenkvist is out of service while this [incident] is going on,” the party representative wrote. According to SVT, she is also temporarily suspended from her employment at Riks.
Fallenkvist wrote a response to the Swedish Dagens Nyheter newspaper that “the book is a moving depiction of human goodness and evil. Anne, who in the first chapters is like any other young girl, lives her life in peace and finds an interest in boys (which I highlighted), in contrast with the evil of Nazism. My story was aimed at the good and humaneness of Anne – not to minimize the evil she was exposed to.”