Thread by @docrussjackson

I see #antifa is trending.

On 13 April 1985, Danuta Danielsson, of Polish-Jewish origin, whose mother had been put in a concentration camp during WWII, hit a neo-nazi of the now defunct Nordic Reich Party with her handbag in Växjö, Sweden.

The fascists were chased out of town.

The photo was taken during a small demonstration of The Nordic Realm Party supporters in 1985, held shortly after a public speech delivered by the Left Party-Communists leader in Växjö, & skirmishes between left-wing supporters & neo-Nazis began even before the demonstration.

The photo was taken by photojournalist Hans Runesson & was published the next day on the front page of the Swedish national newspaper Dagens Nyheter, & on April 15 1985 by two British newspapers The Times & The Daily Express.

Another photograph taken by Runesson during the event shows the ten Neo-Nazis being chased, pelted with eggs and violently confronted by a crowd made up of hundreds of attendants of the left-wing rally joined by local Växjö residents.

One of the neo-Nazis was kicked unconscious, then saved by a protestor who reportedly took pity on him. The far-right activists eventually managed to shelter in the toilets of the city's train station, hiding there for a few hours until the police transported them away.

The picture was selected as the Swedish Picture of the Year (Årets bild) in 1985, & later as the Picture of the Century by the magazine Vi & the Photographic Historical Society of Sweden.

The woman in the photo, Danuta Danielsson, was born in March 1947 in Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland & was of Jewish Polish heritage.

Her mother had survived a German concentration camp in Poland during The Holocaust, reportedly in Auschwitz or in Majdanek.

Danielsson chose to remain anonymous after the event, allegedly due to fears of criminal prosecution & neo-Nazi reprisal.

Speculation & myths about her past accrued over the years as her name remained unknown to the public for nearly three decades.

Although she was only 38 years old at the time of the event, Danielsson came to be seen in the public opinion as a personification of the tant ('old lady'), which in Swedish collective imagery symbolizes "mundane & unstated wisdom, civil courage & moral alignment".

Danielsson had mental health issues, and she died three years after the event by suicide.

The lady in the photograph was revealed to be Danielsson by the press in 2014, in the midst of debates over the installation of a statue as a public memorial of the confrontation.

Her son condemned the idea & stated that Danielsson had never liked the photograph & regretted its fame. He also dispelled rumours about her, including the one that suggested she did not know what she was doing at the time of the event because of her mental health issues.

The man hit by Danielsson is identified as Seppo Seluska, a militant from the Nordic Realm Party, was later convicted for the torture and murder of a gay Jew.

A local artist campaigned for life-sized statue, but in 2015 it was decided against as it could be interpreted as promoting violence & Danielsson's family didn't want her memorialized in such a manner. To protest the decision people across Sweden began adding handbags to statues.

In September 2015, Swedish hotel entrepreneur Lasse Diding announced he had bought the statue and intended to donate it to Varberg municipality. The statue was later unveiled at Varberg Fortress but the Varberg board of culture voted in April 2016 not to accept the donation.

The statue now resides in the garden of Lasse Diding's Villa Wäring in Varberg, & a second statue has been unveiled in the town of Alingsås.

And I understand there is at least one other statue - this one, in Gothenburg.