Today on the occasion of Holocaust Memorial Day, the Young Communist League of Britain remembers the millions who died under the barbarity of Nazi rule and occupation across Europe, aided and abetted by fascist collaborators, and opposed by resistance in which communists played a key, and in many cases leading, role.
This day was chosen for commemoration as the day that Soviet forces liberated those held in the Auschwitz death camp. The debt which we owe to the Red Army in liberating Europe from fascism and exposing the horrors enacted against Jews, Roma and Sinti, Slavs, socialists, LGBT people, people with disabilities, and others whom the Nazis deemed “subhuman” can never be repaid. Yet less than a decade after Europe was saved from being pushed over the precipice into fascism’s cold, murderous arms, Nazis were being rehabilitated and brought into service in the NATO war machine. Meanwhile, the wide-sweeping de-Nazification occurring in the socialist states was ignored and later derided by the ruling class in the capitalist West.
Following the fall of socialism in Europe, and accelerating in recent years, historical revisionism has taken hold, downplaying the role of communists in resisting fascist aggression, and sanitising the abhorrence of the hateful Nazi ideology. Across Canada, numerous memorials stand to celebrate Nazi collaborators, while in many of the former socialist states the physical memory of socialism’s triumph against the wretched offspring of capitalism’s final evolution is torn down. In particular, we stand in solidarity with our comrades in Poland following the banning of the Communist Party of Poland.
In occupied Palestine, the Zionist State of Israel engages in a sickening parody in its genocide against the Palestinians, spitting on the suffering endured by the Jewish people during the Second World War and Humanity’s determination that this would never be seen again.
“Never again” is no mere slogan, but a clarion call to all peace-loving peoples across the world to resist fascism wherever it may appear and in whatever mutation it evolves into. We will defend against these attacks, remembering the words of Niemöller, that against the fascist scourge an attack on one of us is an attack on all.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
International Department
London, Britain
27 January 2026
