Ten years on: Remember Björn Söderberg! Swedish trade unionist murdered by Nazis.

[1968]

Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Syndicalist Björn Söderberg was who attacked in his home and killed by Nazis in a suburb of Stockholm.

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On the 12th October it has been ten years since the Syndicalist Björn Söderberg was attacked in his home and killed by Nazis in a suburb of Stockholm. We solemnize his memory with a dignified manifestation on Monday the 12th. For those of you who are in Stockholm that day, we gather on Medborgarplatsen at 6 pm and march to La Mano on Katarinavägen at 7 pm. There the manifestation will end at 8.30 pm.

The context in which the murder took place, was that Björn acted openly and consequently against racism and Nazism at his workplace. For a while after the murder, protests kept coming in to Stockholms LS, the Stockholm chapter of the Syndicalist union. Tens of thousands gathered all over the country to express their disgust with the deed. Representatives of all the parties in the parliament participated in the manifestation on Medborgarplatsen.


Almost 70% of the Swedish population wanted Nazi organisations to be prohibited after the murder. But today, in our increasingly harsher class society, we witness a slowly growing support for a sneaking racism. The divisiveness of the solidarity between workers takes on such expressions.
At the same time the daily struggle against racism continues at schools and workplaces all around the country, a struggle seldom or never noticed by the media. Many people show their moral courage every day in an open stand against racism and fascism.


We will never back down - No Pasaran!
/Stockholms LS (http://www.sac.se/LS/Stockholm), the Stockholm chapter of the Syndicalist union SAC

Read on - http://anarkisterna.com/blog/2009/10/11/ten-years-later-remember-bjorn-soderberg/

[aty]

Nazi activity then and now
The summer of 1999 saw Nazi violence culminating in Sweden — in May two police officers were executed when stopping a car after a bankrobbery performed by Nazis and in June a car bomb severly injured a journalist living under constant death threats for writing exposing articles on Nazi organisations. That summer Björn worked as a stockroom worker when he learned that Robert Vesterlund, a leading Nazi, had gained a commission of trust in the union Handels at his workplace. Björn was determined to act despite of his own worries of becoming a target. He approached the staff management, the union and the Syndicalist weekly Arbetaren. As a result, Handels bereaved Robert Vesterlund of his commission of trust and, later on, the company fired him. A month later, two armed Nazis rang on Björns door bell and after a heated argument shot him dead.
One of the Nazis who participated in the killing of Björn Söderberg was Hampus Hellekant, notorious in surveying leftist activists, journalists and others that he perceived as his opponents. Since his release from prison he has changed his name and, according to himself, also his politics. But, as the Research Group reveals in this weeks’ issue of Arbetaren, he has never stopped his activities, he has never stopped his monitoring.
The results of which, as we’ve seen, can be severe.
Last December a Syndicalist couple and their two year old daughter were the victims of a Nazi arson in a suburb of Stockholm. The family escaped the flames by climbing down the balcony to the floor underneath. Some months earlier Hampus Hellekant had published pictures and addresses of the couple on a Nazi web page, displaying them as antifascists.


RIP Björn!