A woman Hitting a neo-Nazi with her handbag is a famous photograph taken in Växjö, Sweden on 13 April 1985 by Hans Runesson. It depicts a 38-year-old woman hitting a marching Nazi-skinhead with a handbag. The photograph was taken during a demonstration of the Nordic Reich Party supporters. The angle of the photo, her posture, facial expression, and what she’s wearing makes her look a lot older than she really is. The picture was published in the next day’s Dagens Nyheter and a day later in some British newspapers. It sparked a huge discussion in Sweden, and the woman—who suffered from anxiety and hated the sudden media spotlight—ended up committing suicide two years later.

The woman in the photograph is Danuta Danielsson. She was of Polish-Jewish origin, her mother had been in a concentration camp and she got very angry when she saw the young Nazis in her quiet town. When the incident happened she had only lived in Sweden for a few years. Dunata met her future Swedish husband at a jazz festival in Poland and shortly after that they were married. Her acquaintances described her as energetic and positive during their first years in the new country. But she had a darker side, sometimes she was mentally fragile. Very often she screamed menacingly to people on the streets, sometimes she muttered to herself. She was also treated at a psych ward and eventually threw herself from a water tower in 1988.

The neo-Nazi’s name was Seppo Seluska. He was a militant Nazi from the Nordic Reich Party, later convicted for murder. He tortured and murdered a Jewish homosexual later the same year.

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Addendum (2024)

This design from 2017 was one of three whose purpose was to explore iconic images of women protesting. For that purpose I chose images that had gone viral. These also include BE PRESENT and SHOW UP. Next I wanted to work with other historic images and that’s when I chose the image of Ruby Bridges. After I made that print I noticed how viewers couldn’t remember the details of the event, even though they recognized the image. For example, no one remembered that Ruby was in New Orleans. Everyone assumed it was Arkansas. So that was when I started writing the short blurbs to package with the prints. Over time the blurbs got longer, and now one could call them essays.