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Denmark’s government launches action plan to combat antisemitism and to increase knowledge about Holocaust

Yossi Lempkowicz

A Jewish cemetery in Aalborg, in northern Denmark, was vandalised during the Jewish festival of Passover in 2021. Red paint, baby dolls and antisemitic literature relating to the blood libel conspiracy theory were left outside the cemetery. Flyers were also deposited directing readers to a website that associated with the Nordic Resistance Movement, a Pan-Nordic neo-Nazi organisation that is proscribed in Finland. Picture from Campaign Against Antisemitism.

The objective of the initiatives ‘’is to prepare pupils on how to resist antisemitism and other forms of discrimination’’  and teach them to interact in a diverse society and understand that their actions and statements can have negative implications for other people.’’

Denmark’s government has launched an action plan to combat antisemitism and increase knowledge about the Holocaust in the country.

This plan, which follows the vandalism against Jewish burial sites, is interdepartmental and includes 15 initiatives to prevent that antisemitism takes root in Denmark. 80 gravestones were desecrated at a Jewish cemetery in the town of Randers in 2019 and in 2021, a Jewish cemetery in Aalborg was vandalized during Passover.

Five of the initiatives aims at increasing children and youth’s knowledge of the Holocaust and antisemitism. These five initiatives include:

  1. Obligatory education about the Holocaust in primary and lower secondary school and general upper secondary education;
  2. Continuing and developing the education in the recollection of Holocaust and other genocides;
  3. Preparing teachers to evade exclusion in the school;
  4. Expanding youth-to-youth dialogue between religious beliefs;
  5. More information on Jewish life and culture in Denmark.

The objective of the initiatives ‘’is to prepare pupils on how to resist antisemitism and other forms of discrimination’’  and teach them to interact in a diverse society and understand that their actions and statements can have negative implications for other people.’’

The action plan obligates the educational institutions to ensure that the pupils obtain knowledge and skills, which remove prejudices and myths and call for tolerance and mutual respect between people. This includes working systematically with critical thinking, in relation to for example propaganda and fake news, and challenging extremist and xenophobic attitudes and values.

The action plan also encompass other initiatives to prevent antisemitism including more research on antisemitism, prevention in specific environments, protection of Jews and Jewish institutions, improved instruction regarding anti-Semitic incidents and focus on the fight against antisemitism in the foreign policy.

Denmark was the only European country to save almost all of its Jewish residents from the Holocaust. After being tipped off about imminent roundups by prominent Nazis, resisters evacuated the country’s 7,000 Jews to Sweden by boat.

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