In this episode of The Holocaust Podcast we journey with Primo Levi to a place he describes as ‘the bottom,’ a place where a human being can fall no further – into the depths of the Auschwitz labour camp of Monowitz. Levi explores what it means to be robbed of one’s humanity, to be humiliated, to be emptied. … More Auschwitz: On the Bottom
Many on the political left — and I say this as a socialist — quite enjoy the illusion that antisemitism is a disease of the political right, and it is popularly assumed that Jewish people themselves cannot be anti-Semitic. But nothing could be further from the truth. Antisemitism — or ‘Jew hatred’ — is a deep-seated form of racism which permeates European and North American, Western, culture and society, and one that can be and often has been internalised and reproduced by Jews in the West. Even today, 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we encounter antisemitism everywhere. … More European Antisemitism
Not only is this about history — about something that happened in the past, the Holocaust is a warning for our future. With right-wing racism on the rise, with racist and intolerant parties and personalities again entering the mainstream of European and American politics, the Holocaust stands as a terrible reminder of what happens when we use hatred and intolerance as instruments to achieve our own patriotic and nationalistic political ends. The Holocaust remains the most important lesson of the twentieth century — and Trump, Brexit, and the war in Ukraine only serve to remind us that this is a lesson we need. … More The Origins of Genocide
Over the past six months Socialists in every part of the EU have united with anti-war groups, dissenters, and the growing number of ordinary people who are becoming increasingly alarmed by the effects this war and the sanctions against Russia are having on their lives. The limitation of oil and gas in the global economy has driven costs up, accelerating an already developing cost of living crisis; threatening less-well-off people with a bitter winter in which they will be unable to afford the basics of food, heating, and rent. … More Is Europe Losing Patience with Zelenskyy?
Within Ukraine, there is clear evidence of a disinformation mill churning out outrageous anti-Russian propaganda that is repeated by western Ukrainian journalists in English on their social media pages for western consumption. Naturally, this is picked up by western media and treated — uncritically — as news from the war. It is interesting to note that Lapatina also contributes in English to The Guardian and The New York Times. … More The Propaganda War
A Jewish president of Ukraine in the context of a war with Russia serves a number of functions — and that is what Volodymyr Zelenskyy is, a US-NATO functionary: he’s the cost the Ukrainian Nazis have to pay the Americans and Israelis who are left feeling a little dirty after being in bed with them, he is clueless and will do what he is told (or, at least, do nothing), and he is the perfect cover in a propaganda war where Vladimir Putin has hit the nail right on the head by identifying the connection between the US and the Nazis. … More But the President is a Jew!
There is nowhere else in the world where ideological Nazis enjoy the legal and political protection Nazis in Ukraine do. In January 2018 the Kyiv city municipal council signed an agreement with the ultra-nationalist C14 group, allowing them to form a ‘municipal guard’ — an auxiliary police force — to work with the Ukrainian national police, and twenty one other towns and cities have relationships like this with the far-right. … More The Horror of Ukrainian Nationalism
Ukrainian Nazis, however, are fairly unique in the fact that they have both a historical link and a political line of succession to the Nazism of the Third Reich, to the Schutzstaffel (the SS), and to the Nazi extermination camps. The Nazism of the Svobado Party, the Azov battalion, and many of the other Nazi groupings in Ukraine is a fossilised and authentic Third Reich Nazism. … More Why Ukraine’s Nazis are Different
As the old democracies know, the people do not always vote as they should — and this is what happened in Ukraine. From 1996 the State Department had always taken an active role in helping Ukraine choose the political leadership Washington wanted, but when the people had other ideas in the 2010 presidential election the US began to rethink its approach. … More How the US Instigated War in Ukraine
An old bait and switch happened. No longer are we to be concerned. The focus has moved from the far-right’s military strength and its danger to Ukrainian democracy to its irrelevance within the democratic institutions and lack of popular support. Because so few people vote for the Nazis and because ‘Zelenskiy is Jewish,’ there is nothing to worry about. The narrative of Nazis being a threat to Ukraine was replaced with deflectionary asides about Putin’s fixation on the heroic myths of the Second World War and the Jewishness of the Ukrainian president. … More Protecting the Ukrainian Nazis
Standpoint Zero 