Holocaust Remembrance Day

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Muslim Magomaev – The Alarm Bells of Buchenwald

Today marks 75 years since soldiers of the Soviet Red Army liberated over 7,000 prisoners from the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. After 1,689 days and more than 1 million dead, the murder, suffering and pain finally came to an end.

Today thousands of events took place all around the world to mark Holocaust Memorial Day and to say “never again”.  And I want to briefly focus on the implications of what “never again” means in the face of something so monstrous and evil.

As an editorial by the British socialist newspaper Morning Star on January 27, 2020 put it: “The murder of six million Jews, millions of Soviet prisoners of war, hundreds of thousands of Roma and many gay and disabled people by the Nazi regime and its collaborators is far from history’s only example of genocide, but the calculated and systematic approach to a project aimed at exterminating entire races was unique. It justifies global commemoration of this as the most horrendous crime committed by any government in history.”

Death was truly an industry in the Holocaust.  Camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau have accurately been termed “murder factories”.  And many corporations, including many that still exist today such as I.G. Farben and Thyssen-Krupp, made massive profits on the backs of a workforce that was literally being worked to death.  Nazi officials and SS commanders amassed personal fortunes by stealing from camp inmates and contracting out slave labor to the big industrial firms.  Never before or since has there been such a grotesquely twisted marriage between genocidal violence and industrial capitalism.

And, of course, what followed World War II and the Holocaust was the Cold War.  And the capitalist powers of North America and Western Europe certainly looked after their own.  Communism was the main enemy now and the fiercely anti-communist Nazis were seen as very useful.  And so, apart from the top Nazi leaders tried at Nuremberg, the majority of the surviving perpetrators of the Holocaust in West Germany went totally unpunished.  Under the protection of the U.S. occupation authorities, the West German police, courts, military, security agencies and bureaucracy remained largely staffed by those who had served the former Nazi regime or by their ideological sympathizers (in stark contrast to socialist East Germany, where Nazis were thoroughly purged from virtually every profession).  As Michael Parenti points out in his book Blackshirts and Reds, “The perpetrators of the Holocaust murdered six million Jews, half a million Roma, thousands of homosexuals, several million Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, and others, and got away with it – in good part because the very people who were suppose to investigate these crimes were themselves complicit.” Hundreds of Nazi war criminals were welcomed into the United States and Canada, many of whom did very well for themselves working for U.S. intelligence agencies during the Cold War or for an American military-industrial complex that was hungry for Nazi technology and know-how.

The German capitalists who profited from the Holocaust were likewise never punished.  Hermann Abs, the head of Deutsche Bank under the Nazis and effectively “Hitler’s paymaster”, was even celebrated by the New York Times for playing a “dominant role in West Germany’s reconstruction after World War II.” Of course, as Robert Carl Miller pointed out in an article in the Portland Free Press in October 1994, the Times failed to mention that Abs was a Nazi, that his bank had played a key role in the plundering of occupied Europe, and, as a board member of I.G. Farben, he was majorly involved in the use of slave labor at Auschwitz.  And he’s just one of many examples.  US corporations such as Du Pont, Ford, General Motors, ITT and IBM were heavily involved in the Nazi economy and in the use of slave labor but were likewise never held to account.

Fighting Holocaust denial means maintaining an accurate historical memory and, ever since 1945, there have been massive efforts to re-write history to erase the facts that I’ve just presented, which implicate capitalism and its role in facilitating the Holocaust. 

But equally concerning is the concerted effort to rewrite the history of the second world war to portray our wartime ally the Soviet Union as jointly complicit with Nazi Germany in starting the conflict, something which is both dishonest and dangerous.

Nazi Germany would not have been defeated were it not for the Soviet Union.  80 per cent of all German military casualties during the war were on the Eastern Front.  The 58 Wehrmacht divisions based in Western Europe at the time of the D-Day landings, were dwarfed by the 228 divisions deployed at the same time against Operation Bagration, the Soviet advance from the east.

The peoples of the Soviet Union also paid the highest price for victory, with 27 million lives lost — more than one in seven of the country’s entire population. To dismiss this colossal sacrifice on the part of millions of Red Army soldiers or to portray them as oppressors no better than the Nazis they fought, as is now commonplace in Ukraine, Poland and a number of other eastern European countries, is a shameful insult to the memory of those who liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, as well as a shameful distortion of history.

The 21^st Century propaganda effort, in North America and in the European Union, to present communism and fascism as twin “totalitarian” ideologies is likewise an insult to the communist partisans and Resistance fighters — “the bravest of the brave,” in the words of the late British Labour leader Michael Foot — who formed the backbone the underground resistance to Nazi occupation and fascist regimes in the occupied parts of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy, Czechoslovakia and France among other countries.

This re-writing of history facilitates the rehabilitation of fascism and legitimizes modern far-right movements that are growing in power and influence across Europe and beyond; posing a direct threat to marginalized peoples, ethnic minorities, working class people, women, migrants, and LGBTQ people. 

Stepan Bandera, who has been elevated to the status of a national hero in Ukraine since the Maidan coup of 2013 swept a far-right, US-backed government to power in that country, was a blatant and high-profile Nazi collaborator.  His Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists participated in the Holocaust and massacred hundreds of thousands of Jews and ethnic Poles, working hand-in-glove with the Nazi occupation authorities.

This is hardly an isolated case, however.  Poland has passed laws against referring to the role of Polish collaborators in the Holocaust. Lithuania is now debating a similar ban. Monuments to the Red Army liberators of Europe are torn down and defaced while fascist regimes from Hungary to Italy are being rehabilitated.

Anti-Semitism is growing throughout Europe along with the growth of far-right movements and political forces.  As I’ve pointed out on previous shows, the Government of Apartheid Israel has effectively shifted the framing of Anti-Semitism from attacks and discrimination against Jewish people to any criticism of the State of Israel and its genocidal, colonizing policies toward the Palestinian people.  I talked last month, in the aftermath of the British election, about how Jeremy Corbyn was relentlessly attacked in the media as an Anti-Semite because he is a supporter of Palestinian rights, while the real far-right Anti-Semites who firebomb synagogues and smash Jewish graves effectively got a free pass…to say nothing of the Neo-Nazi militias in Ukraine, who worship monsters like Stepan Bandera, and who are now getting their guns from Israel.  This what the Israeli human rights activist Shir Hever had to say about this particularly disgusting form of political and historical revisionism on the Real News Network on January 24:

Shir Hever – How Israel Exploits the Holocaust to Justify War Crimes Against Palestinians

Midnight Oil – White Skin, Black Heart

Now, there’s another less well-known anniversary today that I would like to draw your attention to, comrades and friends.  January 27th, 1944 – the siege of Leningrad was lifted – it lasted 900 days. The starving besieged Red Army garrison and workers’ militias managed not only to lift the siege but even to encircle and eliminate the Nazi troops which had besieged the city from 1941-1944.

According to different estimations, from 600 000 to 1.5 million civilians died of famine and bombing during the siege.

Economic destruction and human losses in Leningrad exceeded those of the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Moscow, or the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Despite the massive hardship and destruction, the people of Leningrad didn't surrender and continued heroically resisting the Nazis. The capture and destruction of Leningrad was one of three strategic goals in the Nazis' Operation Barbarossa, in which over 4 million soldiers invaded the USSR along a 1,800 mile front, the largest invasion in the history of warfare.

The Nazi focus on Leningrad was motivated by its political status as the former capital of Russia and the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution, its military importance and industrial importance, including numerous arms factories. The brutal siege on the city was finally broken in the wake of the Operation Iskra offensive. After fierce battles the Red Army units overcame the powerful German fortifications and on January 27, 1944 the Soviet forces expelled German forces from the southern outskirts of the city, breaking the siege.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union ultimately resulted in 95% of all German Army casualties from 1941 to 1944 and 65% of all Allied military casualties accumulated throughout the war. It was in Leningrad and Stalingrad that the incalculable sacrifice and heroic resistance of the Soviet people broke the back of the Nazis and ensured the defeat of fascism in World War 2.

Oi Polloi – Bash the Fash

Solidarity with Wet’suwet’en Indigenous Land Defenders

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Willie Dunn – I Pity the Country

You’re listening to Back in the USSR on CFRU 93.3 FM in Guelph.  I am Siegfried, and this is stolen native land.  I’d like to take this time tonight to express my solidarity with the indigenous land defenders of sovereign Wet’suwet’en traditional territory in the region known by the colonial name of British Columbia, as they face down an act of war, an armed invasion, perpetrated against their nation by the Government of Canada.

Last week I discussed the act of war perpetrated by the American Empire against the sovereign nation of Iran, this week I’ll be discussing an act of war much closer to home, but no less egregious in that it is an imperialist action that targets a sovereign people and their way of life for destruction.  While the Iranian military was able to strike back against American bases in Iraq last week with missiles and, for the time being at least, deter the United States from further aggression, the Canadian colonial state looks set to mount a full-scale invasion of sovereign indigenous land in northern B.C.  The Wet’suwet’en land defenders are currently facing an imminent assault by the RCMP that would clear the way for a liquefied natural gas pipeline to be built across their land without their consent.  Just as the United States and its brazen refusal to withdraw its troops from the sovereign country of Iraq, after the entire Iraqi parliament voted unanimously to expel them, constitutes a flagrant violation of the principle of self-determination, so does the RCMP’s threatened invasion of unceded indigenous land.

The people of the Wet’suwet’en indigenous nation never signed treaties with the British Empire or with the Canadian Government after 1867.  They never signed away any of their territory or rights.  They effectively remain a sovereign nation and in 1997 the Supreme Court of Canada recognized this fact, ruling that aboriginal land ownership had never been given up across the Wet’suwet’en’s 22,000 km sq of territory.  But that landmark court decision in favor of their traditional rights on their land didn’t stop the fossil fuel industry from trampling on everything that the Wet’suwet’en held dear in the name of profit.

In December 2018 the Wet’suwet’en people set up the Gidimt’en checkpoint to block construction of the proposed 670 km Coastal GasLink pipeline (CGL) across their territory, thereby exercising their right as a sovereign people to deny access to something that would damage their land and way of life.

On January 7, 2019 the RCMP committed its first large-scale act of aggression against the Wet’suwet’en when heavily armed officers raided the Gidimt’en checkpoint and arrested 14 indigenous land defenders.  The police established a “media exclusion zone”, blocking reporters from accessing the area and covering this hostile action which led to large-scale protests across Canada.

On December 20, 2019, leaked internal RCMP documents published by the Guardian revealed that police were prepared to use lethal force against indigenous land defenders in the Gidimt’en raid earlier that year: “The RCMP commanders also instructed officers to ‘use as much violence toward the gate as you want’.  The RCMP were prepared to arrest children and grandparents: ‘no exception, everyone will be arrested in the injunction area’.”

On January 4, 2020, House Chiefs representing all five of the Wet’suwet’en clans exercised their sovereign rights in evicting Coastal GasLink (CGL) employees from Unist’ot’en and Gidimt’en territories.  An eviction letter stated that workers were not to return to the territory without the consent of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs. 

On January 7, just last week, Coastal GasLink posted an injunction order giving the land defenders 72 hours to clear the way to its work site and allow access.  The RCMP began mobilizing in the area to enforce the injunction.  The land defenders put out a call for solidarity actions and demonstrations across Canada.

On January 9, the United Nations called for the immediate withdraw of the RCMP from Wet’suwet’en territory and for a complete suspension of work on the Coastal GasLink pipeline until “free, prior and informed consent” is obtained from the Wet’suwet’en people.  The RCMP has declared a no-fly zone over Wet’suwet’en territory, set up an "exclusion zone" at 27km and are blocking media, Wet'suwet'en people, and food from getting up to the territory.

This is where things stand now.  There were rallies in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en all across Canada last week, with indigenous peoples and their allies organizing to stop this illegal colonial invasion of sovereign native land.  I myself participated in one of these rallies in downtown Guelph, just yesterday on January 12.  I wish more people had shown up, but we still managed to shut shit down and make our voices heard.  But there’s so much more that needs to be done, and time is running out.  This is the interview that the Real News Network conducted with indigenous activist Kanahus Manuel on January 10, emphasizing the truth that this flagrant aggression by the RCMP against Wet’suwet’en is part of Canada’s long colonial legacy.

TRNN – Canada’s Cops Were Ready to Shoot Indigenous Anti-Pipeline Activists

Willie Dunn – The Ballad of Crowfoot

Comrades and friends, as you know, settler-colonialism in Canada is something that I’ve discussed and made a deliberate point of discussing with my students in China whenever I’ve taught ESL there.  I’ve talked about Louis Riel and the North-West Rebellion, I’ve talked about the Oka Crisis, and I’ve talked about Wet’suwet’en.  And let me tell you, it’s not hard for young students in an ancient country that suffered under colonialism for 100 years, from the Opium Wars in the 1840s until the final victory of the Chinese communists in 1949, to understand what the indigenous peoples of this land are going through.  Some Canadian ESL teachers go abroad full of kitschy stories about maple syrup and hockey and might as well be propagandists for the Canadian Government, but I’m not like that.  I talk about the real history and the current reality in this country.  I show my students things that are not pretty about this country.  And I talk to them about two extremely important English words that not enough Canadians know or understand: “self-determination” and “internationalism”.  Self-determination concerns the right of every people and nation to determine their own destinies free from colonialism, empire or capitalist globalization.  Internationalism is the solidarity of different peoples across borders to support one another in the fight for liberation from colonialism, capitalism and empire.  And I want to emphasize to the settlers who stand in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en that what we are engaged in is internationalist solidarity, because the Wet’suwet’en are themselves a sovereign nation that refuses to submit to the colonial dictates of the Government of Canada and the multi-national corporations whose interests it is protecting when it sends out the RCMP to beat up, arrest or shoot indigenous land defenders.  The Wet’suwet’en might not have an army or a state, but ultimately, they are as sovereign as the Iraqis or the Iranians, and their self-determination must be respected and defended.  Self-determination and internationalism.  Two very, very, important words that are very, very important to understand.  This is an invasion that we are fighting to stop when we go out into the streets to protest and demonstrate in support of indigenous land defenders struggling to end the ongoing colonial genocide against their people and nations.  The Canadian Government might speak of reconciliation, but there can be no reconciliation without self-determination and a complete and total end to colonial rule across Turtle Island, so-called North America, and the Land of the Condor, so-called South America – where indigenous peoples from Bolivia to Brazil to Colombia to Guatemala are fighting for their lives and sovereignty in the face of outright fascism in many cases.  And I’m not even going to talk about how climate change ties into this, I think most people listening to this show already grasp that kind of stuff, but pardon me if I doubt that so many of you truly understand concepts like self-determination and internationalism.  Like me, you grew up in a racist settler-colonial society built on genocide and, like me, you took so many things for granted.  And it’s a long and hard road to unlearn all the bullshit you’ve been fed, let me tell you.

Midnight Oil - Truganini 

Paul Robeson - March of the Volunteers