When the sun shines I can get so sad...

It is a beautiful summer day in Valby. The streets are crowed with people doing Monday shopping on their way home from work. It is this time of the year when Denmark is showing herself from the best side.

I had just got off the S-train and headed in direction of a local supermaked with the best section of kosher groceries. I love the Valby downtown, though a part of Copenhagen it is as a small town. There is a relaxed atmosphere in Valby, and I have my iPod in the ears and the mind on what to buy in the supermaked.

I had just crossed a street when I hear a comment through the music in my iPod. It is clearly aimed on my Magen David round my neck. I turn around and see an elderly man in maybe his late sixties making a face in my direction. I shake my head clearly indicating what I think of him and walk away. I am already too far away to tell him, what I think of the big empty space in his kopf.

Experiences like this can make me sad - but only for a moment - since it is a lovely sunny day today...

Turncoats, turans in Copenhagen and elsewhere

When you sit in your cosy living room in a tranquil part of the world as Copenhagen and Denmark is, you are always filled with the deepest respect for people, who stand up for the rights and fight for freedom and democracy. Who would have believed to see the fall of the Berlin Wall and East Germans in their Trabis drive through the Brandenburger Tor into the free west, the end of communism in Russia, one man one vote in South Africa?

Now and then we forget the gift of democracy and freedom. The pictures on CNN from Teheran helps me remember and be grateful.

In Denmark our votes are counted. In Denmark we can speak without fear. We can even follow the religion of our choise. Denmark is indeed a heaven of freedom. This freedom also obligates us to speak out against unjust elsewhere in the world.

This obligation was reminded by the Social Democratic polician from Copenhagen Lars Aslan Rasmussen. He demands the Islamisk Trossamfund (Islamic religious society) to condemned the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran - or they can forget all about a grand mosque in Copenhagen for the city's Moslem population. This came after the leader Willy Søvndal of the Socialistisk Folkeparti (Socialist Peoples Party) condemned the Iranian clergy and asking for a respond from the Imams of the Islamisk Trossamfund. The speakers of Islamisk Trossamfund calling Willy Søvndal a turncoat trying to gain Danish voters.

Now this demand rises several interesting debates seen in the light of Danish democracy.

How can a presidencial election in Iran have influence on the building of a grand mosque in Copenhagen? Since we enjoy freedom of religion in Denmark can any kind of mosque building project only be affected by the local Moslim population and their ability to buy a plot of land and raise the money needed for the construction of a mosque building.

How can the oppinion of Islamisk Trossamfund representing less than 10 % of the affiliated Moslems in Denmark be the mouthpiece of all Moslems in Denmark?

Whether a grand mosque is at stake or not, why is the leadership of a Islamic congregation in a democracy not condemning the misuse of their religion by a dictatorship killing its own people?

All these questions I ask myself quietly, as I think of the hard struckle of the Iranian people in their freedom fight. All this while I sit and watch CNN in my living room in - Baruch HaShem - Danish democracy...

Evig skam

DR 2 viser i denne uge en tysk dokumentarserie med titlen Hitlers Holocaust. I dag mandag er det første afsnit vist med undertitlen Menneskejagt. Udsendelsen gøre brug af samtidige amatøroptagelser samt vidneberetninger fra ofre og bødler. Serien er seværdig, men ikke for sarte sjæle; man kunne måske ønske at det blev vist på tv-kanaler med en bredere seerflade.

Jeg vil vende tilbage til begrebet ofre og bødler. Det er et genkendeligt begreb, når det handler om folkemord i Europa, Rwanda, Sudan, Cambodia...

Ofrene er lette at definere. Over seks millioner jøder. For de fleste mennesker er dette et velkendt tal: 6.000.000 jøder! Seks millioner er mere en der i dag 2009 bor i Danmark, Finland, Skotland eller hver af de baltiske stater. Havde nazismens vanvid ramt et af disse folk i stedet for Europas jøder, ville jeg ikke i dette øjeblik kunne sidde og blogge på dansk, med mindre jeg havde en interesse for døde sprog. De færreste kan rumme forestillingen om 6.000.000 individer: mænd, kvinder, bedstemødre og -fædre, spædbørn, 3,5-årige som min nevø, piger og drenge - lige begyndt i første klasse, studenter, nygifte og sådan kunne jeg blive ved. Stil dig op en travl plads i en by i Danmark og betragt alle, der går forbi dig - dømt til at blive frarøvet deres fremtid - deres liv, blot fordi de var jøder. Måske er det nemmere blot at forholde sig til et tal - seks millioner (jøder). Tal eller bogstaver trækker ikke vejret og har ikke ansigter, der føler smerte.

Bødler er straks lidt mere anstrængende at forholde sig til. Bøddel er jo oprindelig en officiel stillingsbetegnelse. Hver større by har haft sin bøddel, som eksekverede domme over dødsdømte forbrydere. Jeg kan ikke se de gamle grå mænd i tv-udsendelsen som bødler, der udførte ordrene fra højere sted. Skønt det nager mig at finde de følelser i mig, så ser jeg forbrydere, som nu bliver hjemsøgt af deres ugerninger fra deres yngre dage. Jeg ser og hører mange undvigelsesforklaringer: Jeg deltog ikke selv. Jeg var imod det. Jeg blev beordret. Jeg vidste ikke bedre... Det er selvfølgelig kun enkelte, der kan deltage i en dokumentarudsendelse. Så mange gamle grå mænd (og kvinder) har ikke mulighed for at stå frem med deres skam i en tv-udsendelse. Jeg må trist erkende overfor mig selv, at jeg inderligt håber, at alle disse grå forbrydere, som deres sidste klare tanke på deres dødleje, vil blive hjemsøgt at deres umenneskelige forbrydelser og ansigterne af de uskyldige mænd, kvinder og børn, hvis blod over 60 års tavshed ikke har kunne vaske bort.