Nazism and after

Billy Says:

The legacy of Nazism is everywhere here. Even in way northern Norway, into the arctic circle, there's memorials and museums to mark the Nazi occupation and anti-Nazi resistance (see Narvik post). Then, of course, Berlin has a huge memorial (see Berlin post). Paris had my favorite memorial. You're led down a staircase, which opens to huge walls and triangle spikes staring you down, then bars and a small window to the sea beyond. You have to figure out that the memorial is behind you, but while you figure it out, you're usefully suspended in feeling confined and threatened.

In Wien, there's a giant cement block, comprised of hundreds of books (made of cement), all with their spine inward, so as to be unreadable. This is to represent the knowledge lost due to the holocaust. This has been criticized because of course not only the intelligentsia were killed. But my friend Rudi replies, "all the same, it's a huge block of cement; it'd be pretty hard to remove if the right wing came to power, and i think that's part of the point."

Warszawa is subtly horrifying, in that it seems nice enough, but 90% of the city has been completely rebuilt after the Nazis attempted to annihilate the city, the Jews, the Poles who hid Jews, the Polish Jews, the anti-capitalists and anti-Nazis, and Poland in general. IN a way, the whole city is a grim reminder of Nazism, and what spirit of Jewish vibrancy and human institutions remain is a memorial to the necessity of living in resistance.

Auschwitz, on the other hand, is simply horrifying. Libby broke out in tears as we stood in the gas chamber and the playful cries of an infant echoed off the walls which have held so many screams of death. The moment I entered the "dorm" for children (and mothers) at Birkenau, I felt a wave of sheer revulsion, and i think i would have vomitted if i had stayed longer than ( or ten minutes. In the whole place there is a feeling that overtakes you and cannot be easily explained. Death happens. Even death by oppression is understandable, known, and able to be grappled with, given the passing of time. But to stand on a piece of land where 1.5 million were killed in just one or two years? Unbelievably wretched.

In addition, the way in which Anti-Nazism influences a radical/anarchist politics in Europe - and Germany, Poland, and Austria in particular - is fascinating and instructive. I was intrigued to learn that Austria was isolated, governmentally and financially, in 2000 when 25-30% of parliament was elected Neo-Nazi. This, i'm told, gave useful sanction and encouragement to the street anti-fascist movement, and to anarchist rebellion generally. But, as the years passed; the "regular" Nazis, the average voters who elected these extremist-right candidates felt a new determination to bring their politics to life, rather than feeling discouraged or defeated.

I've spoken with so-called regular Germans who struggle with any displays of German flags or patriotism, and outside of sporting this is rather rare anyway. But our friend Rudi in Wien showed us photos of German soccer fans flagrantly displaying German flags, WWI (yes, one) military helmets and generally violent, macho patriotism. Rudi says with disgust, "Look at them, proudly displaying that flag which reminds the world of evil they had never before imagined." He also told me of Holocaust survivors who could never again speak or hear German spoken without traumatics memories of the brutal commanding language of their captors and killers.

Rudi is sympathetic to the "anti-deutsch" anti-fascist tendency, and he presented himself in a way in which was able to have some of taht sympathy rub off on me. I have thought before of the "anti-deutsch" folks as making crude pro-Israel and pro-America displays that I can't even slightly respect. But for Rudi, the emphasis was on establishing a culture of "zero tolerance" for any hints of a recurrence of "National Socialism." For example, Rudi told a story about organizing a caravan of Indian anti-Globalization activists throughout Europe. During the journery, one Indian man turned to Rudi and said, "Hitler was great, he killed lots of Jews." Rudi paid the airline fee to have the man immediately flown back to India. Many people tried to tell him that maybe the man simply didn't understand what he had said, didn't mean it, and so on. Rudi insists, "If I had done anything less, I would have been treating him like a child, not taking him seriously in his opinions."

It feels clear to me that the Nazi "episode" has an aftermath which we are not yet out of. I don't know what it will take to bury the ordeal once and for all, but we aren't finished doing it yet, that's for sure.

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here´s the view from the bottom of the steps at the paris memorial:

and from the inside looking out: