While the coronavirus has taught us to take precautions like washing our hands to avoid infection, what steps should we take to stop the spread of racism and fascism in Europe? The knee-jerk reaction of countries like Denmark to shut down their borders for a month to most tourists should not surprise us. As many…
Tag: Holocaust
Spiral of hatred is a tightening noose around the neck of the Perussuomalaiset party
Racism is like a rabid dog on a short leash. The racist shows of his dog and other racists are amazed. But a warning: The dog can bite back and hard because the sick dog knows no master. The Perussuomalaiset (PS)* is a party that is spinning out of control, and it is self-inflicted: Ethnonationalism,…
Auschwitz: An overcast day of black-and-white history where it still rains yesterday
In the face of the rise of far-right ideologies and populism, it is scary how some forget how hatred turns some people into heartless beings. Did you know that before the rise of Hitler in 1933, Jews with German citizenship totaled half a million, or about 0.75% of the total population? Captain Gustave Mark Gilbert,…
QUOTE OF THE DAY (Gustave M. Gilbert): “Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy”
What characteristics unite anti-immigration politicians like the Perussuomalaiset* and Blue Reform of Finland? Captain Gustave Mark Gilbert, the Army psychologist at the Nuremberg trials (1945-46), said what the Nazi war criminals on trial had an incapacity to feel with their fellow men. That fellow men and women are today Muslims, among other groups. “Evil, I…
Himmler and Mannerheim in the fall of 1942, a cordial gaze, drinking schnapps
This picture below really bothers me at the wall of the Mikkelin Klubi. located 230km north of the capital Helsinki. Considering what Nazi Germany called the “Final Solution,” the genocide committed against the Jews, Roma and other enemies of the Nazi regime, you may rightly ask what this picture is doing on the wall.
Are we sowing the seeds of a second Holocaust in Europe?
If we look at this famous, or infamous, picture of Germans rounding up Jews in Warsaw to be sent to a death camp, a harrowing question emerges: Could it happen again? Instead of Jews would there be Roma, Muslims or even Jews being escorted at gunpoint to a box car? Even if such a question…
Arson attack against mosque in Sweden is another red light flashing in the roaring silence
A mosque in Sweden that was hit by arson on Christmas Day is the latest warning that we cannot stand idly to the ever-rising tide of Islamophobia and far-right violence griping Europe these days. Words are not regular bullets that kill instantly but are time bombs that can explode anywhere and anytime. The attack against the…
Nazi salutes and the growth of far-right ideology in Finland
In two weeks, two Perussuomalaiset (PS) politicians got their fingers burned badly after one made a Nazi salute with a Hitler mask while another took a picture of another one who made the same salute in parliament. One of the reasons why some Finns can do this in public is because they have a blind…
The Jews of Finland
The Jewish side of our family was never discussed openly when I was young. If it was, the matter appeared as a fleeting question: Is it true that part of our family is Jewish? Read full column here on page 14. Silence always followed that question. In retrospect, our silence and answer revealed a lot about…
Julian Abagond: Was Hitler evil?
MT comment: Was Hitler and the Nazis an aberration or a product of European racism and colonialism? Was the devastation that Hitler sowed the same beast that Europeans had imposed on others in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Australia? By blaming Hitler and the Nazis for what they did, are we denying the problem of…