Pro-Palestine activists staged a protest in central Stockholm on Saturday featuring a mock Auschwitz gate with ‘Gaza’ instead of ‘Arbeit Macht Frei.’
The protest was organized by the group Palestina Demonstration Stockholm in response to what they say is the wrongful detention of Palestinian pediatrician and hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya by Israeli authorities.
The activists gathered to demand Abu Safiya’s immediate release, as well as “respect for international humanitarian law and protection for all healthcare workers in war and conflict.”
The case of Abu Safiya – who has been held in Israeli detention since September 2024 – has gained significant international attention. While Amnesty International, for example, refers to him as an “arbitrarily detained Palestinian health worker,” Israel maintains that he is actually a Hamas colonel.
The Stockholm protest therefore called for his release, as well as the release of Marwan Barghouti, and the protection of Gazan health workers.
Protest showed Netanyahu covered in blood under mock Auschwitz gates
The protest involved a performance depicting Gazan mothers and babies being persecuted by a blood-covered Benjamin Netanyahu under a sign designed to look like the entrance gate of Auschwitz. The Netanyahu figure then waves a wad of cash.
“Doctors are not targets; stop killing our doctors,” read many posters.
The Auschwitz gate garnered significant criticism.
“To trivialize the Holocaust in the way that occurred at yesterday’s demonstration in Stockholm is incredibly distasteful and abhorrent,” said Aaron Verstandig, lawyer and Chair of the Official Council of Swedish Jewish communities.
“As with other similar incidents, no one intervened, which is why the boundaries of what is considered acceptable continue to be pushed further and further,” he added.
Swedish Jewish academic Dr. Daniel Schatz also commented on the protest.
“The demonstration is led by a person dressed as Netanyahu with a bloody head, an Israeli flag, and a depiction that brings to mind Nazi symbolism,” he said.
He added that, according to the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism, which Sweden has adopted, this relativization and trivialization of the Holocaust constitutes a clear example of antisemitism.
“Particularly noteworthy is that this is happening openly on Swedish streets, in full view of the police, without any visible objections. How long will these insanities be normalized before the responsible authorities and politicians pull the emergency brake?”
