9 November 2012

9th November
International Day against Fascism and Antisemitism

November 9. a Fasizmus és Antiszemitizmus Elleni Küzdelem Nemzetközi Napja.

ResponsAbility - It's in your hands⁽¹⁾

NEVER AGAIN! 9 November 1938 marked the beginning of the “Kristallnacht” pogrom and it is seen today as the symbolic beginning of the Holocaust, the policy of systematically murdering millions of people. It reminds us that such terrible things did not start with deportations and concentration camps, but developed step by step.

Nazi propaganda and hate speech against Jews and laws depriving Jewish citizens of their rights – as happened with the ‘Nuremberg Laws’ which, among other things, stripped German Jews of their citizenship – were the first steps which eventually culminated in violence and pogroms. We must be aware that history is used to being repeated and the Holocaust happened with the silent acceptance and support of the broad majority. Nowadays, right-wing extremism is a rising force on the entire continent. Hate crimes are frequent realities, extreme right-wing parties are elected into parliaments and xenophobic propaganda is becoming legitimate.

On 9 November 1938, nazi Germany started a pogrom against Jewish people. SA Storm Troopers and civilians destroyed more than 8000 Jewish homes and shops, set synagogues on fire, imprisoned, injured and killed Jews all across the country. Pieces of broken windows covering the streets in many German cities gave rise to the name “Kristallnacht” which freely translated means the Night of Broken Glass.

The “Kristallnacht” pogrom is seen as the start of the systematic eradication of Jewish people which had started with the discrimination and exclusion of the German Jews since 1933 and which eventually led to the murder of approximately 6 million Jewish people and 5,5 million ‘enemies of the German state’: homosexuals, criminals and ‘asocial’ people, members of diverse religious communities, people with mental disabilities, political ‘offenders’ such as communists and socialists, Spanish republican refugees and minorities like Roma and Sinti among others.⁽²⁾

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Sources:
(1) http://unitedagainstracism.org/pages/underframeInternationalDayAgainstFascism.htm#MAT
(2) http://unitedagainstracism.org/pages/infon9_12.htm#2