On this day 80 years ago, 7000 Jews in the Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp were finally liberated by the Soviet Red Army. January 27th formally became recognized as International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the United Nations. Concentration camps were places where certain groups were brought to be imprisoned, and either to do extreme forced labor, which usually resulted in death by exhaustion, or to be murdered in extermination camps.
These Nazi Concentration Camps, commonly referred to as death camps, conducted a systematic genocide of Jewish, Romani, LGBT+, Communists, and other racial/ethnic, religious, and political minorities. Their liberation was possible only due to the concerted effort of the Popular Front between the American and British armies, the Red Army of the Soviet Union, and the partisan movements throughout Europe composed of Communists, Socialists, labor unionists, and all democracy-loving people against the fascist onslaught.
Camps such as Dachau, Buchenwald, and Bergen-Belsen were liberated by the American and British armies. Many other camps were liberated by partisans and the allied forces from France to Poland and Czechoslovakia to Yugoslavia and elsewhere throughout the end of WWII.
Unfortunately, today we are witnessing another rise of reactionary and fascist forces throughout the world that threaten oppression and genocide against minorities and the working peoples of the world. These forces are erasing and whitewashing history to justify this oppression.
In the United States, the re-election of far-right Donald Trump has strengthened the reactionary, racist, and neo-Nazi forces. He has targeted the LGBT+ community and pledges to end “transgender lunacy.” On the question of immigration, he has demonized immigrants seeking asylum, characterizing them as criminals, rapists, and drug-dealers. Within his socially backward ruling-circle full of billionaires is Elon Musk who has praised fascist parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Notably Elon Musk also gave the Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration.
The rise of reaction can also be seen elsewhere in the world. In 2014 the democratically elected Viktor Yanukovich government in Ukraine was toppled by fascist, neo-Nazi, and other reactionary groups. In Israel, the far-right Likud regime led by Benjamin Netanyahu has so far exterminated between 45,000 and 60,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, under the guise of eliminating Hamas after its brutal attacks on Israeli citizens on October 7th, 2023.
The rise of these reactionary far-right and fascist groups is not a cause to cast the people of the world into a pessimistic nihilism. Rather, to honor the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the progressive forces of the world: the labor movement, the anti-war movement, the Communist and Socialist movements, the civil liberties movement, women’s movements, anti-racist movements, and all other pro-democratic and inclusive movements must unite under an anti-monopoly coalition. This coalition will work together to build an electoral front as well as educational programs, to preserve democratic ideals in the US and around the world, to cut the military budget to put into much needed social programs, and to remove corporate lobbies from the U.S. political sphere. Only through such a coalition can the democratic people of the world live in peace.
Co-Chair of the United Jewish Peoples Fraternal Order
Tyler Rosen