In Sweden, there is a fascinating statue of a woman named Danuta Danielsson who became a hero in 1985 when she used her purse to clobber a white Nazi supremacist while he marched in a right-wing rally.
What makes her statue unique among hero statues is that it captures her performing the heroic act of swinging her purse. It’s entirely an action-shot, a big departure from the universal practice of constructing hero statues intended to portray individuals as heroes. Danielsson’s statue isn’t about her as a person; it’s about her one specific act of courage that day.
Heroism, it could be argued, describes an action, not a person.
All around the world, and especially in the United States, statues of slave traders, warriors, and profiteers are toppling to the ground. Once revered as heroes, these statued individuals have been exposed as villainous human rights violators.
With this in mind, Danuta Danielsson’s statue should be one that remains uncontroversial. Her statue portrays a heroic act that can withstand any scrutiny into her character.
What did we know about Danielsson’s character? We know that her mother had survived a concentration camp during World War II. Danielsson knew the horrors of the Nazi menace and took action on that April day in Sweden.
But like all human beings, Danielsson had a dark side. That aspect of her character, however, is irrelevant to her heroic act of clobbering a marching Nazi, an image nicely captured by her statue in vivid heroic detail.
In 1985, a group of Nordic Reich Party supporters marched through the streets of Växjö, Sweden. At one turn, a woman leapt from the crowd, smashing her handbag into the skull of a Neo-Nazi supporter. Hans Runesson grabbed his camera and got the shot. Even today, his photo is held up as an iconic image of protest.
Danuta Danielsson, the woman with the handbag, had moved to Sweden a few years before, to marry a Swedish man. She’d grown up in a Polish-Jewish family. Her mother had survived a concentration camp during World War II. Seeing the Nazis in her new home, she snapped.
The image brought her international recognition — with people both celebrating her and vilifying her. Two years later, already battling a mental illness that the media attention exacerbated, she jumped off a water tower, committing suicide.
The photograph was taken during a small demonstration of The Nordic Realm Party supporters on 13 April 1985. As approved by the authorities, the rally had been planned to be held shortly after the end of a public speech delivered by the Left Party-Communists leader Lars Werner in the centre of Växjö, and skirmishes between left-wing supporters and Neo-Nazis began even before the start of the far-right demonstration.
Runesson’s photograph was published the next day on the front page of the Swedish national newspaper Dagens Nyheter, and on April 15 by two British newspapers, The Times and The Daily Express. Another photograph taken by Runesson during the event shows the 10 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 on the ground, then saved by one of the protestors 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) 1985 and later as the Picture of the Century by the magazine Vi and the Photographic Historical Society of Sweden.