My friends father was anti-fascist. He went to Spain in 1936 or 37 to fight for the Republicans.
He had at least one grandchild, one of these days he’ll get that comic book about anarchism I got forty years ago that had a story about anarchists in the Spanish Civil War.
I’m only slightly disappointed that the punchline here is not “Your grandparents probably literally fought fascists in World War II.”
Unless they fought in the Abraham Lincoln brigade. In which case they were officially classed, “Premature Antifa” and put on communist watch lists. God, I wish I were joking.
Got any Henry Olsen? He’s WaPo’s resident reactionary concern trolley.
One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons (I couldn’t find it online) has some Argentine cowboys sitting around a campfile, except for one with a military uniform, monocle, and cigarette in a long holder. One of the others is asking him, “Tell us, Jose, why do you never dress like the rest of us Gauchos?”
Hmm, nope! You see, I mainly collect articles relevant to Scientology and other cults; Alt-Right and other pud-knockers; and dark right organizations that channel the money, buy the politicians. Oh and Canadian politics, crimes against indigenous peoples, odds and ends…
I doubt he’s ever said anything relevant.
That was a good one. I just wish the article wasn’t behind a paywall. *
“Democracy dies in Darkness” my eye.
Democracy is for those who can pay…
The argument would be that someone has to pay her salary. Bezos could probably finance the whole operation out of petty cash, but that would raise even more questions about its independence than already exist.
In some localities you can access the paper through the local public library.
While this is a common trope - especially considering Argentina - the vast majority of Nazis stayed or came to (often western) Germany. A really massive number of refugees from the eastern parts (Pomerania, e.g.) came. From the Soviet Zone (later GDR), those who were known Nazis and were replaceable often always came to FRG. Comparatively few actually left after the war for South America. Brasil, Argentina and Chile already had long-established German communities, so they were natural destinations for the few who tried to go to South America. And I think nearly everywhere, nearly everyone did want to forget and cover up the past.
What I do know: my grandfather was in Warsaw in Summer 1940. My grandfather was a Soviet prisoner of war, but I don’t know since when. He rarely spoke about it. He sometimes spoke about his movements during the war, drawing them into an Westermann school atlas. He rarely spoke of more, even when asked. I will never know his true involvement.
But it is clear to me that, at least at some point, he must have supported the Nazis, not only by being drafted and fighting on the wrong side of humanity, but also before that.
He lived until his 93th year on this planet.
Others did not.
And I will make sure this is not forgotten.
…and those who can circumvent the paywalls.
@dontpanicbobby, I suggest e.g. a VPN, TOR, or Outline. Works for me with the “limited number of articles” paywalls most of the time.
Sadly, the same is not true for academic journals.
I do have access to a lot of stuff legally, but the stuff I don’t have the “right” to skim through to see if it is worth reading in depth gets on my nerves no end.
I am glad that The Guardian has the option of making small payments. I admit I haven’t done this, but I am going to put my money where my mouth is.
So either those who can pay or those clever enough to circumvent paying…
Like these guys? Group 43 was an antifascist direct action group set up after the war and even included the famous hairdresser Vidal Sassoon https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/may/24/the-british-jews-who-fought-postwar-fascism-on-londons-streets
To their credit, Germany has done a better job of acknowledging their activity in WWII than many other countries under the Axis sphere. As a Jew who is maybe a little oversensitive to antisemitism I am always comfortable visiting Germany.
I am glad that The Guardian has the option of making small payments. I admit I haven’t done this
It is worth doing, the nags go away, it is a much more pleasant experience, and you get to feel virtuous, all for the price of a couple of cups of coffee.
I subscribe to 4 papers, and still run into paywalls on most others. It is very irritating, like discovering that the one movie you want to watch is not on any of the streaming services you pay for. I think papers would get more subscribers, willing to pay more money, if they could get partner subscriptions on a wider range of papers.
I´m German, so I think I´m good.
Since it’s originally a German organisation the German pronunciation applies in my opinion. If you go with something like “un-tea fah” you’re not far off
You can ask the Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv for any paperwork they have on him.
It will probably take a while but should be free (?) and might give you some more insight.
Maybe some day I will do that for my two grandfathers as well. I never met either of them. I’m pretty sure one of them was an NsDAP member but I don’t know what he did in the ear and the other one was at the Eastern front.
On the other side of the spectrum is Japan. Where they go all in with ultra-right wing revisionism when it comes to museums and popular accounts. Typified by the Peace Museum at Yaskuni Shrine.
For an example at the entrance of the museum you are greeted by
With a sign (in English) about how the locomotive was used in the great Burma Thai Railway, an achievement of wartime engineering. The railway was typically described by British and American POW’s as “The Death Railway” due to the number of slave laborers/POW’s worked to death in creating it. It only gets worse from there.
You see? It’s a meritocracy after all!
Absolutely. When I was a brat, my dad used to take me to the local cinema, one film we saw was ‘The Bridge On The River Kwai’. It must have been a re-release, because it was made in 1957, so I would have been 3 then, so maybe around ‘65/66-ish…
Anyway, I just treated it as a regular war movie, and left it at that. He died when I was 13, so I never had a chance to find out more, which is a shame, as he knew more about what happened than many - he was RAF ground crew in Singapore when it fell to the Japanese, and spent the rest of the war in Changi PoW camp… 
Then there’s the museum in Nanjing dedicated to the Rape of Nanking. It’s specifically set up to refute the Japanese position that it wasn’t really a massacre. It’s built over mass graves, which can be seen through the floor.
At the end of the walk-through there’s a sign saying (not the exact words, but close) “Then the war ended, and now we all get along on the world stage. We’re friends. But always be vigilant. Because they’re Japanese, so they’ll do it again if they have the chance.”
It takes some searching to find the plaque thanking the three Japanese businessmen for donating the money to put up the museum.
Were The Guardian not funded by a trust, they’d likely be asking for more, and putting up a paywall, too. I hope they can maintain their existence for a good, long time as is.
