Today, January 27, 2023, marks the 78th anniversary since the brave Soviet soldiers liberated the infamous Auschwitz death camp. The Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day for us, the United Jewish Peoples Fraternal Order, to join in solidarity with our Jewish as well as Slavic, Romani, LGBT+, Socialist, Partisan brethren as well as all the persecuted people by Nazi Germany. The Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day to mourn the loss of more than 6 million lives but to also celebrate the strength and resiliency that our people demonstrated and continues to demonstrate to this day.
While we remember the victimization of fallen ancestors, we cannot forget that they did not go without resistance against the Nazi barbarians. Our brothers and sisters faced off bravely against the Nazis in Warsaw, Poland in April and May 1943. This great event led by the left-wing Jewish Combat Organization would go down in history as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The uprising was against the deportations of tens of thousands of Jewish Poles to extermination camps. The Jewish Resistance knew they would not survive but decided they were the ones to decide their fate.
Around the world, Anti-semitism is on the rise. People today still deny that the holocaust even happened; they disregard and distort historical evidence of the atrocities that Nazi Germany and their fascist allies committed. Since 2014, Ukraine has seen a rise of violent antisemitic acts. The UK has reported over 170 violent acts in 2022. America has seen gunnings and kidnappings at synagogues. As anti-fascists, we must reiterate “Never Again” and they must not just be empty platitudes. We recognize the disease that causes anti-semitism is fascism whether it’s here in the US, Ukraine, or anywhere around the world.
In Solidarity,
Jake Fund
Executive Chair of the UJPFO