This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer, a veteran anti-fascist and journalist based in Vienna.
Seventy years after the Nazis unleashed the Kristallnacht pogrom in Germany and Austria, the scourge of antisemitism still persists. In 1938 and 1939, the Jews of those countries were forced to leave, but not all of them could find refuge in the democratic countries. And many of those who were successful in entering France, Belgium, Netherlands and other European countries were later caught by the Nazi machine and murdered.
Continue reading ‘Combating Antisemitism in Europe’
There’s an excellent article by Alejandro Baer in today’s El País about the contrasting treatment given to the news of Kristallnacht on the Francoist and Republican sides during the Spanish Civil War. Baer, a social anthropologist at Madrid’s Complutense University, sets out in detail the approval and indeed glee with which the news was greeted on the Francoist side and compares this with the condemnations expressed by the media on the Republican side, as well as noting the solidarity expressed with the victims by Spain’s legitimate government and the support offered to them, even as the Republic’s own death agony approached.
Continue reading ‘Kristallnacht in Civil War Spain’
In a few days, the seventieth anniversary of Kristallnacht - the terrible night of 9/10 November 1938, when the Nazis launched a vicious pogrom against the Jews of Germany - will be marked. Sadly, if not surprisingly , it seems that some people are bent on portraying this as principally a Palestinian tragedy, rather than a Jewish one.
Continue reading ‘Kristallnacht: Who Were the Victims?’
