Never Again: Why We Remember The Holocaust

Never Again: Why We Remember The Holocaust

Eighty years ago, survivors were liberated from the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps. The Nazis murdered six million Jews as well as Roma and LGBT people. It was the culmination of Hitler’s programme.

Fascism did not start with an open project of genocide. The Nazi Party built its base through directing people to discrimintate between the insiders and outsiders of their nation using racism and anti-semitism. Genocide was its logical end.

Today, fascists are rising again. The AfD in Germany contains open Nazi lovers. Its rally was addressed by Elon Musk who uses Twitter to rehabilitate Nazi ideas. In Ireland, dark conspiracy theories are promoted on social media to use dog whistle attacks on Jewish people.

Socialists oppose all forms of racism – including anti-semitism. Among those who were murdered in Auschwitz was Abraham Leon, a young Jewish socialist who located antisemitism in the historical development of capitalism.

He distinguished between Zionism, which was a political creed that he rejected, and anti-semitism.

So should we.