UN Special Rapporteur Mocked Israeli Mother Who Lost Her Daughter on October 7

In March, shortly after a memorial ceremony in Berlin for the victims of October 7, Sonja Bohl-Danker, the mother of Karoline Bohl, who was murdered at age 22 in Kibbutz Nir Oz, went to a film premiere. The guest of honor at that premiere, held at the Babylon cinema, was Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, known for her anti-Israel stance, conspiracy theories and incitement against Israel.

"I have never been in a place where I felt so much hatred," Bohl-Danker said at the time in an interview with a German newspaper. "Everywhere there were keffiyehs, terrible slogans and pure hatred for everything connected to Israel."

Bohl-Danker has spoken extensively over the past year about her daughter, especially about support for Hamas on the streets of Germany and the fact that the victims of October 7, even German citizens such as Karoline, were completely forgotten. "I feel abandoned," she said in January.

Bohl-Danker's criticism of the premiere event was mild. The violent protests outside the cinema, where chants such as "Israel has killed more than two million Palestinians in Gaza" and "There is no evidence that anyone was killed on October 7" were heard, spilled into the auditorium.

Karoline Preisler, a German politician whose grandfather was a Nazi soldier, was also in the hall. Since the Black Sabbath, Preisler has regularly appeared at rallies calling for the hostages to be returned. In addition, she attends pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Berlin, carrying Israeli flags and posters that remind people that "rape of women is not resistance." She is considered one of the most hated figures in the pro-Palestinian scene in Germany.

Inside the hall, dozens of people in keffiyehs surrounded Preisler, demanded that she be removed from the room and shouted at her, "Nazi, Nazi." Anyone who asked a critical question was attacked and called a "racist" or a "Nazi." Albanese sat on the stage and, between one conspiracy theory and another incitement, told the packed audience, most of them local Germans with no migration background, how in Belgium dogs are trained and then sent to Israel to rape Palestinians. In response, the crowd cheered.

"I was shocked both by the things that were said and by the reaction to them," Bohl-Danker said after the premiere. "But above all I was shocked by the identity of the people. They had no empathy for Karoline, for me, or for the other victims on the Israeli side."

Albanese, who has also become known for anti-Israel appearances together with Greta Thunberg on European streets, is one of the leaders of the pro-Palestinian movement in Europe. Her role at the UN gives her an appearance of objectivity, and she is seen as authoritative and influential. Many believe her theories make the ground fertile for self-fulfilling violence in the streets.

She has previously said that she does not care about Israel, only about international law, and that the world "must impose sanctions on Israel until it ceases to exist." The extremism of her words and actions led the US administration to impose travel restrictions on her and freeze her access to international financial systems, such as bank accounts or credit cards.

In her lawsuit seeking to regain access, Albanese noted that the decision was preventing both her and her husband from accessing the medications they use. That did not stop her from responding cruelly to Bohl-Danker’s remarks about the March event in Berlin.

Bohl-Danker had written at length about the effects of her only daughter's death, about the fact that she cannot bear the loss, and about her unwillingness and inability to continue living. Albanese, an employee of the UN, as noted, replied: "Then change your medication."

There was no empathy whatsoever in that response. In her view, Bohl-Danker and her daughter Karoline belong to the bad side, the Israeli side.

"I don't care what she says about me," Bohl-Danker wrote. "She slanders many people, and I'm just one of them. I care about the things she spreads. Claiming that dogs are trained to rape human beings is a sick lie," she concluded.