Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust
International media and politicians silent on anti-Semitism in Polish elections
By Clara Weiss, 24 July 2020
The central role of anti-Semitism in the official campaign of the ruling PiS has no precedent in Poland since the end of the Nazi occupation in World War II.
Italian composer Francesco Lotoro rescues music composed in the concentration camps
By Fred Mazelis, 21 July 2020
Lotoro has devoted three decades to the research and discovery of music written and performed in defiance of Nazi barbarism.
#Anne Frank Parallel Stories: The young victim of the Nazis
By Joanne Laurier, 18 July 2020
#Anne Frank Parallel Stories is a documentary streaming on Netflix that retraces the life of Anne Frank, as well as five living women who survived the Nazi concentration camps in World War II.
Yellow Star, Red Star
Capitalist counterrevolution and the rise of fascism in southeastern Europe since 1989
By Clara Weiss, 20 June 2020
Though fatally flawed by its equation of Stalinism with communism, and the author’s reluctance to discuss the social character of the restoration of capitalism, the book exposes the close relationship between capitalist counterrevolution and the rise of fascist forces.
Sharp rise in right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic violence in Germany
By Peter Schwarz, 1 June 2020
The number of anti-Semitic crimes rose by 13 percent over the previous year to 2,032 cases, that is, five to six each day last year.
Ukrainian National Police official demands a list of Jews living in Kolomyya
By Jason Melanovski, 19 May 2020
The intimidation and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities within Ukraine has become routine, with far-right elements operating openly as officials of the Ukrainian state.
Leaked UK Labour Party anti-Semitism report: A filthy witch-hunt exposed
By Thomas Scripps, 27 April 2020
The leak of the Labour Party investigation marks an appropriate endpoint to Corbyn’s five-year record of political surrender and collusion.
Brendan McGeever’s Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution: Distorting history in the service of identity politics
Part two
By Clara Weiss, 13 April 2020
This is the second part of a two-part review.
New Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer pledges stepped-up “anti-Semitism” witch-hunt
By Thomas Scripps, 11 April 2020
Even prior to his election, Starmer was at pains to reposition himself to be acceptable to the Zionist and Blairite right.
Brendan McGeever’s Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution: Distorting history in the service of identity politics
Part one
By Clara Weiss, 11 April 2020
This is the first part of a two-part review. The second part will be posted on Monday, April 13.
No to right-wing “anti-Semitism” lawsuit against New York University!
the IYSSE at New York University, 12 March 2020
The state-led campaign against BDS and the lawsuit at NYU are an assault on democratic rights having nothing to do with the fight against anti-Semitism.
Ontario parliament to ban criticism of Israel under guise of combating anti-Semitism
By Roger Jordan, 7 March 2020
Bill 168 targets left-wing groups and individuals by branding criticism of the actions of the Israeli government, with which Canada has close ties, as anti-Semitic.
New York Times posts anti-Semitic caricature of Harvey Weinstein
By David North and Andre Damon, 26 February 2020
The illustration, which has multiple characteristics associated with anti-Semitic depictions of Jewish people by the Nazis, strikingly resembles an image published in October 1936 in the Nazi propaganda magazine Der Stürmer.
Labour Party leadership candidates profess Zionism at Jewish Labour Movement hustings
By Robert Stevens, 18 February 2020
After Corbyn’s four years in office, the Blairites are on the verge of winning back the leadership amid the threat of mass expulsions of Corbyn supporters.
Auschwitz liberation commemorated in Poland amid state-led campaign for historical revisionism and war
By Clara Weiss, 28 January 2020
Duda’s and Steinmeier’s condemnations of fascism and anti-Semitism stands in stark contrast to the political record of their own governments.
Seventy-five years since the liberation of Auschwitz
By Christoph Vandreier, 27 January 2020
Auschwitz was at the heart of the machinery of industrialised mass murder that spanned the entire continent. Jews, Sinti, political opponents of the Nazi regime and others were deported to the death camp from every part of occupied Europe.
Pence, Netanyahu use Holocaust event in Israel to rail against Iran
By Bill Van Auken, 24 January 2020
The slander of Iranian “anti-Semitism” and unfounded claims that Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons are propaganda to justify a steady buildup toward war.
All UK Labour leadership candidates sign up to stepped up pro-Zionist witch-hunt
By Robert Stevens, 15 January 2020
The most enthusiastic signatory to a document that means a stepped up witch-hunt of anti-Zionist party members is Rebecca Long-Bailey, the candidate favoured by the pro-Corbyn “left.”
World famous pianist Igor Levit victim of anti-Semitic death threats
By Marianne Arens, 11 January 2020
The fact that a Jewish pianist cannot perform publicly without protection indicates the extent of the current turn to the right in German politics.
The anti-Semitism accusations against Corbyn: A witch-hunt in the service of imperialism
By Jean Shaoul, 13 December 2019
The witch-hunt centres on a concerted attempt to equate opposition to Zionism and the colonial policies of the Israeli state with hatred of the Jewish people in general and the infamous and reactionary anti-Semitism of the Nazis in particular.
Trump signs executive order aimed at suppressing criticism of Israel
By Niles Niemuth, 12 December 2019
The purpose of the order signed Wednesday is to squelch free speech at publicly funded universities, targeting in particular the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
On the centenary of the composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919–1996)
By Clara Weiss, 6 December 2019
The music of Polish-Jewish composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919–1996), who spent much of his life in the Soviet Union, has been recently rediscovered. It counts among the most significant bodies of work produced in the 20th century.
UK’s chief rabbi aids right-wing campaign against Corbyn
By Jean Shaoul, 28 November 2019
The witch hunt against Corbyn and the wider left has been made possible by Corbyn’s refusal to mobilise the hundreds of thousands who joined the Labour Party based on his pledge to oppose austerity and militarism against the Blairite right wing.
Audio recording refutes Hannah-Jones’ claim that she was falsely quoted by the World Socialist Web Site
By Eric London, 27 November 2019
The World Socialist Web Site publishes the audio of Hannah-Jones’ remarks.
1619 Project director speaks at New York University
Nikole Hannah-Jones, race theory and the Holocaust
By Eric London and David North, 26 November 2019
There was not a single statement made by Hannah-Jones at NYU on historical issues that withstands serious examination.
Corbyn refuses to fight ramped-up bogus “anti-Semitism” witch-hunt
By Robert Stevens, 12 November 2019
The frenzied media campaign branding Corbyn, the Labour Party and its left-wing members above all as anti-Semitic is the “push back” demanded by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Neo-Nazi would-be synagogue bomber arrested in Colorado
By Julian James, 6 November 2019
In addition to Holzer, at least 12 other people have been arrested in the US for participating in plots to attack Jews since the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in October of 2018.
Large Berlin solidarity protests against anti-Semitism and right-wing terrorism.
By our reporters, 14 October 2019
This weekend’s protests underscored, once again, the widespread opposition that exists to the return of fascism in Germany.
Right-wing extremist network behind fascist synagogue attack in Germany
By Ulrich Rippert, 11 October 2019
The reality is that the “ideological inciters” of the right-wing terrorist attack in Halle hold top positions within the state and security apparatus, the intelligence agencies, the military and the federal government.
A major exhibition at New York City’s Museum of Jewish Heritage
The story of Auschwitz
By Fred Mazelis, 17 September 2019
The fundamental lesson of a study of the Holocaust is that the alternatives before humanity remain those of socialism or barbarism.
German president silent on the Holocaust at WWII memorial
By Peter Schwarz, 4 September 2019
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier failed to utter a word about the extermination of the Jews at a ceremony in Warsaw marking the 80th anniversary of World War II.
Labour-controlled Tower Hamlets council refused to host Palestinian charity event, citing “anti-Semitism” fears
By Jean Shaoul, 6 August 2019
The decision is a blatant attack on free speech and confirms that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism provides a mechanism for censoring, silencing and even criminalising individuals and organisations that oppose Israel’s brutal suppression of the Palestinians, while slandering the entire left as “anti-Semitic.”
Forty years since first German broadcast of the “Holocaust” series
By Clara Weiss, 5 August 2019
Under conditions of an international resurgence of fascist forces, the series, which had an enormous impact in West Germany in 1979, has lost none of its relevance.
Berlin’s Jewish Museum director Peter Schäfer forced to resign
By Verena Nees, 2 August 2019
The campaign against alleged “left” anti-Semitism and the BDS boycott movement serves to suppress leftist movements and fuel genuine anti-Semitism.
Tory councillor calls for Jeremy Corbyn to be hanged as bogus anti-Semitism campaign intensifies
By Robert Stevens, 27 July 2019
The campaign led by Labour’s right wing and various Zionist groups accusing Corbyn and the “left” of anti-Semitism has played a central role in encouraging political violence.
BBC Panorama witch-hunts Corbyn and Labour Party on bogus anti-Semitism charges
By Richard Tyler, 13 July 2019
The programme was trial by media, providing a platform for politically hostile former Labour Party staff members to air their allegations against the Labour leader.
Paul Hanebrink’s A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism
Part 2: Stalinism, communism and anti-Semitism
By Clara Weiss, 9 July 2019
Hanebrink’s false equation of Stalinism with communism leads to a significant and misleading omission in his discussion of the reemergence of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe after World War II and internationally today.
Part 1: Counter-revolution and anti-Semitism
Paul Hanebrink’s A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism
By Clara Weiss, 8 July 2019
Hanebrink’s book focuses on examining the relationship between the fear of the “specter of communism” haunting Europe—to which Marx and Engels famously alluded in their Communist Manifesto of 1847—and of anti-Semitism.
A letter to the New York Times on the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Germany
By David North, 8 June 2019
World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North sent this letter to journalist James Angelos in response to his recently published article “The New German Anti-Semitism.”
Republicans launch “anti-Semitism” smear campaign against Representative Rashida Tlaib
By Tom Hall, 14 May 2019
The attacks on the Detroit congresswoman follow a similar campaign against Representative Ilhan Omar earlier in the year.
Faculty at Chicago’s DePaul University condemn professor’s anti-democratic, militarist comments on Middle East
By Kristina Betinis, 13 May 2019
The faculty resolution condemned the views of Professor Jason Hill, who called for Palestinians to be stripped of voting rights and for Israel to exercise “unprecedented and excessive military might.”
Neo-Nazi networks exposed across US military
By Jacob Crosse, 4 May 2019
Recent independent investigations have shown that multiple white supremacist groups are operating freely across all branches of the military.
Michigan State University performs stirring rendition of Babi Yar, Dmitri Shostakovich’s anti-fascist symphony
By Nancy Hanover, 1 May 2019
Shostakovich’s masterpiece was performed by the Michigan State Symphony Orchestra, the University Chorale, the State Singers, noted baritone Mark Rucker and conductor Christopher James Lees at Detroit’s Orchestra Hall on April 27-28.
Anti-Semitic propaganda distributed at Polish parliament as government witch-hunts Holocaust historians
By Clara Weiss, 16 March 2019
The Polish government is engaged in an unprecedented witch-hunt of historians of the Holocaust and promotion of anti-Semitism.
Labour Party investigated for anti-Semitism by UK government human rights commission
By Chris Marsden, 8 March 2019
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has extraordinary legal powers, granted under the 2006 Equalities Act, and could open a full inquiry under section 20 of the Act within two weeks.
Netflix’s Trotsky: A toxic combination of historical fabrication and blatant anti-Semitism
By David North and Clara Weiss, 8 March 2019
Netflix is currently presenting to its worldwide audience the virulently anti-Semitic television series, Trotsky, which was originally produced by the Russian state in 2017.
Dearborn, Michigan mayor suppresses historical article on Henry Ford’s anti-Semitism
By Tom Mackaman, 7 February 2019
The censored article details how Ford’s Dearborn Independent newspaper served as a platform for vile slanders against Jews—and an inspiration for Hitler and the Nazis.
AfD deputy denounces a Holocaust commemoration in German parliament
By Christoph Vandreier, 7 February 2019
Seventy-four years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the crimes of the Nazi regime are being downplayed in the German Bundestag (parliament) without triggering any significant protest.
Fascist deputies disrupt Holocaust memorial in Germany
By Peter Schwarz and Andre Damon, 26 January 2019
On Wednesday, deputies from the neo-fascist Alternative for Germany walked out of a Holocaust remembrance ceremony in the state parliament of Bavaria.
Who Will Write Our History: Emanuel Ringelblum and the Warsaw Ghetto archive on the screen
By Clara Weiss, 24 January 2019
Roberta Grossman’s film is an important contribution to a wider discussion about the significance of historical truth in the struggle against fascism.
The Holocaust and the Bush family fortune
By Bill Van Auken, 5 December 2018
We are reposting here a commentary published by the WSWS in June 2003 following then-President George W. Bush’s tour of the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
European Jewish Association slanders left and urges dialogue with far-right
By Jean Shaoul, 24 November 2018
Central place at the two-day event in Brussels, November 6-7, was given to a session slandering UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as an “existential threat” to Jews.
Mass shooting at Pittsburgh synagogue
Anti-Semitic violence erupts in America
By Joseph Kishore, 29 October 2018
To understand the significance of the homicidal violence in Pittsburgh that has left 11 people dead, it is necessary to place the event in its international and historical context.
Retreat by Corbynites on anti-Semitism definition emboldens UK right wing
By Robert Stevens and Chris Marsden, 6 September 2018
Once again, Corbyn and his immediate coterie have capitulated in the hope of appeasing their critics and maintaining party unity.
Reject the anti-Semitism slurs against Jeremy Corbyn! Drive out the Labour Party right wing!
By Chris Marsden, 31 August 2018
The lying campaign to paint Corbyn as an anti-Semite aims to discredit socialism in the hope of preventing any challenge by the working class to austerity and war.
Smearing of Corbyn as an anti-Semite prepares right-wing breakaway from Labour
By Julie Hyland, 4 August 2018
The Blairite right wing is openly discussing a “declaration of independence from Corbyn’s Labour” by much of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Bogus anti-Semitism campaign against Corbyn and the “left” escalates
By Jean Shaoul and Chris Marsden, 28 July 2018
The attack on Corbyn and his supporters centres on measures that would criminalise criticism of the State of Israel for its persecution of the Palestinians as a form of anti-Semitism
1945: The horrors of the Holocaust in Hungary
By Joanne Laurier, 11 May 2018
It soon comes to light that certain townspeople had a hand in the deportation of Jews from the Hungarian village to concentration camps and benefited in the confiscation of their property.
Belgian prime minister smears filmmaker Ken Loach as “anti-Semitic”
By Paul Bond, 4 May 2018
The pro-austerity premier’s slur demonstrates how baseless charges of anti-Semitism are being used to attack any form of social protest or comment.
Bogus “Labour anti-Semitism” campaign secures expulsion of leading activist Marc Wadsworth
By Chris Marsden, 30 April 2018
Wadsworth has been subjected to a two-year campaign of denigration by the Labour Party’s right-wing and the media on the most transparent pretext imaginable
Tory-Blairite gangup in witch hunt over alleged UK Labour anti-Semitism
By Jean Shaoul, 24 April 2018
The debate in the House of Commons on anti-Semitism was planned as a co-ordinated attack on Corbyn by Labour’s right wing in alliance with the Conservative government
Sunday Times uses dirty tricks, slander and lies to tar Labour’s pro-Corbyn left as anti-Semitic
By Robert Stevens and Chris Marsden, 4 April 2018
The Sunday Times investigation is an exercise in McCarthyite witch-hunting, which has failed to substantiate spurious allegations of widespread anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
Anti-Semitism accusations against Corbyn aimed at criminalising the left
By Chris Marsden, 28 March 2018
Labour Friends of Israel, of which most MPs at Monday’s protest are members, is dominated by the party’s right-wing and was at the centre of the coup plot against Corbyn.
French ruling class promotes memoirs of neo-fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen
By Francis Dubois, 9 March 2018
As French imperialism prepares for new wars, a vast operation is underway to rehabilitate the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime and France’s colonial war in Algeria.
Polish president signs bill censoring free speech about the Holocaust
By Clara Weiss, 7 February 2018
The action will have a “chilling effect” on all forms of political speech and scientific research opposed by the ultra-right Polish authorities.
Polish government seeks to criminalize mention of Polish crimes during the Holocaust
By Clara Weiss, 30 January 2018
The far-reaching assault on free speech is part of the systematic effort of the right-wing PiS government to strengthen fascist forces and, along with that, falsify the history of Poland.
Mélenchon denies France’s responsibility for the Nazi-era deportation of the Jews
By Alex Lantier, 31 July 2017
The social movement Mélenchon aims to launch would be a nationalist and petty-bourgeois movement hostile to historical truth and the working class.
Behind the anti-Semitic and racist attacks in the US
By Patrick Martin, 1 March 2017
The coming to power of the Trump administration has encouraged the most reactionary, racist and backward forces in American society.
The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw—Part 2
From the Holocaust to present-day Poland
By Clara Weiss, 11 January 2017
The core exhibition at the recently opened POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw has now marked its second anniversary.
Roger Cohen of the New York Times declares that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism
By Chris Marsden, 24 October 2016
Cohen’s attack on the left’s “anti-Semitism,” which seeks to proscribe all criticism of Israel, is a slander directed in particular against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters.
Polish PiS government encourages anti-Semitism
By Clara Weiss, 29 August 2016
The government in Warsaw is promoting a revision of history that downplays Polish nationalist participation in anti-Semitic crimes.
On the death of German historian Ernst Nolte
By Christoph Vandreier and Peter Schwarz, 20 August 2016
Nolte is infamous for initiating the Historikerstreit (Historians’ Dispute) in 1986 with his downplaying of National Socialism and the worst crimes in human history.
Oppose the witch-hunt of Ken Livingstone!
By Robert Stevens and Chris Marsden, 2 May 2016
Ken Livingstone, accused of anti-Semitism, is the target of a smear campaign aimed at discrediting all criticism of Israel and shifting the Labour Party still further to the right.
The Holocaust as Via Dolorosa: The mysticism of Piotr Chrzan’s Klezmer
By Dorota Niemitz, 19 November 2015
Piotr Chrzan’s directorial debut deals with the subject of the organized search for the Jews, or the Judenjagd, in Nazi-Occupied Poland.
Samuel Kassow’s Who Will Write Our History?
By Clara Weiss, 25 July 2015
Kassow’s history of the Oyneg Shabes underground archive in the Warsaw Ghetto combines remarkable objectivity with a deep compassion for the tragic fate of Warsaw’s Jewry during World War II.
The Nazi war of annihilation against the Soviet Union: Part two
Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide, and Radicalization
By Clara Weiss, 13 January 2015
The volume provides insight into the criminal historical antecedents of the current siege of cities in eastern Ukraine by the Western-installed regime in Kiev, spearheaded by Ukrainian fascist forces.
Protests spread across Europe against Israeli war on Gaza
By Kumaran Ira, 28 July 2014
On Friday and Saturday, thousands of people marched across Europe to protest the Israeli military onslaught in Gaza strip that has killed over 1,000 Palesntinians.
Nationalism and fascism in Ukraine: A historical overview
Part one
By Konrad Kreft and Clara Weiss, 9 June 2014
The collaboration of Germany and the US with Ukrainian fascists has historical precedents reaching back 100 years.
Anti-Semitism and the Russian Revolution: Part three
By Clara Weiss, 1 May 2014
This is the final part of a three-part review of a historical study by Ulrich Herbeck on the history of anti-Semitism in Russia from the tsarist empire until the end of the Civil War in1922.
White House cynicism on the Holocaust
By Patrick Martin, 29 April 2014
Obama mourns the victims of Nazism while promoting fascist elements in Ukraine.
Anti-Semitism and the Russian Revolution: Part one
By Clara Weiss, 29 April 2014
This is the first part of a three-part review of a historical study by Ulrich Herbeck on the history of anti-Semitism in Russia from the Tsarist empire until the end of the Civil War in 1922.
French TV documentary: “Shoah by Shooting—SS Death Squads in Ukraine”
By Clara Weiss, 22 April 2014
Earlier this year, the French television documentary “Shoah by Shooting—Death Squads in Ukraine” was released on DVD in Germany.
Marxism and the Holocaust
By Nick Beams, 15 May 2010
The following is an addendum to the lecture “Imperialism and the political economy of the Holocaust,” delivered by Nick Beams at San Diego State University on April 29.
Imperialism and the political economy of the Holocaust
By Nick Beams, 12 May 2010
This lecture was delivered at San Diego State University on April 29. It was the eighth in a series entitled "Killing for a higher cause: Political violence in a world in crisis" sponsored by the Institute on World Affairs within the Political Science Department of the San Diego State University.
Iran’s Holocaust conference and the dead end of bourgeois nationalism
By Bill Van Auken, 23 December 2006
In his year-end press conference, President George W. Bush once again condemned the Iranian government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the officially sponsored conference of Holocaust deniers convened in Teheran earlier this month, declaring that it “heralded a really backward view of the history of the world.”
A crude attempt to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism
By Jean Shaoul, 22 December 2003
A recent article in the British newspaper, the Guardian, provides a noxious example of the concerted effort being orchestrated by the Zionist political establishment to rubbish all criticism of its murderous policy towards the Palestinian people.
Henry Ford: American anti-Semitism and the class struggle
By Nancy Russell, 18 April 2003
Henry Ford and the Jews: the Mass Production of Hate by Neil Baldwin, Public Affairs. New York. 2001, paperback release December 17, 2002
A survivor of the Warsaw ghetto
Roman Polanski’s The Pianist
By Fred Mazelis, 18 February 2003
Roman Polanski’s latest film, The Pianist, is a moving evocation of the Nazi Holocaust, depicted through the experience of a single survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Canadian Alliance's Stockwell Day and the charge of anti-Semitism
What is the right covering up?
By Guy Leblanc and Keith Jones, 27 November 2000
Charges that Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day is an anti-Semite, or at least in the past promoted hostility to Jews, continue to circulate. During the Alliance leadership race Day tried to lay such allegations to rest, declaring a claim that he had said Jews were “children of the devil” was “1000 percent false.” Yet questions about Day's beliefs persist, and this for three reasons.
An assessment of Peter Novick's The Holocaust in American Life
By Nancy Russell, 29 June 2000
The Holocaust in American Life by Peter Novick, published by Houghton Mifflin Co., 1999. The author is a nationally prominent professor of history at the University of Chicago. His 1988 book, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession, was awarded the prize for best US history book of the year by the American Historical Association.
At University of Michigan forum
Historians criticize Goldhagen book
By Martin McLaughlin, 17 November 1997
At a forum held at the University of Michigan on November 8 an international panel of historians concurred that the bestselling book by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners, was a travesty of historiography.
Why did the Holocaust take place?
By David Walsh, 2 June 1997
More than any other trend of thought, Marxism insists on adopting a historical attitude to every phenomenon.
Anti-Semitism, Fascism & the Holocaust
A critical review of Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners
By David North, 17 April 1997
The following was given as a lecture by David North, national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party in the United States, at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
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