While all over the world – despite the Corona pandemic – the memory of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Europe from fascism and war is kept alive, commemorating the victims and honoring the liberators of the anti-Hitler coalition, a Prague district government is indulging in a political scandal that cannot be surpassed in its provincialism and small-mindedness.

Despite international protests and interventions, including to the Czech state government, on Friday 3 April the monument of Marshal Konev, who as supreme commander had achieved the military liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp and Czechoslovakia, was dismantled and transported away. Only a few weeks ago, on 27 January 2020, Czech anti-fascists have honored Marshal Konev at this memorial in memory of the victims of the fascist extermination policy.

Obviously, the district government tried to use the exceptional situation because of the health-related initial restrictions to carry out this desecration of the monument without public protests. Apparently, they wanted to prevent that on the liberation day of the Czech capital or on Victory Day thousands of Prague citizens would again make a pilgrimage to this monument and commemorate the liberators with flowers and other honors.

Following on from the scandalous declaration of the European Parliament on 19 September 2019, which was used as a legitimation, particularly in the Baltic States and in Poland, to remove monuments of remembrance of the liberators, we are now witnessing another appalling example in Prague of the consequences of this historical revisionism.

The FIR and its member federations are however sure that the Czech anti-fascists and many citizens will retain the memory of the liberators despite this outrage and will remember in worthy public forms Marshal Konew and the thousands of fighters in the ranks of the Red Army, who accomplished the liberation achievement.

With deep sorrow, we have to inform, the Greek resistance fighter Manolis Glezos died on Monday at the age of 97 years. He had previously been hospitalized because he had difficulty breathing and chest pain. Glezos was politically active until his old age.

He had become known to a broad public when, together with Apostolos Sandas, he took down the swastika flag from the Athens Acropolis during a life-threatening action on 30 May 1941. It was a symbolic act of resistance against the German occupying forces. Many Greeks followed this example at the time. Up to the present day, Glezos and Santas have been considered a symbol of the resistance of the peoples against fascist foreign rule and oppression. During the war, he was arrested and tortured several times. His younger brother was executed by the occupying forces.

After the liberation of the country from the fascist occupation, Glezos first headed the Communist Party newspaper “Rizospastis” as editor-in-chief. The newspaper was banned in December 1947; in 1948, he was sentenced to death for this activity. Due to strong protests, especially from abroad, this sentence was not carried out. Glezos was not released until July 1954. In the following years he received further long prison sentences for his political activities. Immediately after the military coup on April 21, 1967, he was sent to prison again. It was not until 1971 that he was released through a general amnesty. He was sentenced 28 times for his political activities, including three times to death.

After the fall of the military junta he was, among other things, chairman of the United Democratic Left (DFA) and mayor of the municipality of Apiranthos on Naxos, where he was born. He was first elected to the European Parliament in 1984 for PASOK. In 2002 he founded the group “Active Citizens”, which cooperated with the then Synaspismos (now SYRIZA). In 2012, he was elected to the Greek Parliament for SYRIZA. He was the oldest member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 7 July 2015.

Despite his old age, in recent years he has always vehemently defended the legitimate demands of the Greek people regarding compensation for the damage caused by the German fascist occupation.

The FIR and its member federations mourn with the family, his fellow combatants and the Greek anti-fascist movement. We will keep an honorable memory of him.

It is with deep sorrow that we must announce the death of our long-time comrade and member of the Honorary Presidency Ilya Semyonovich Kremer. He died March 23, 2020 in Moscow at the age of 98.

Ilja fought in the ranks of the soviet army in the great Patriotic War and participated in the liberation of Berlin 1945. He was active for decades for the FIR, as political secretary, as representative of the Soviet and/or Russian veterans federation and as senior consulter and advisor for international relations.
FIR honored him with the Michel Vanderborght Award and confirmed him as a member of the honorary presidency several times.

Our condolences go to his family and the comrade of the Russian Veterans Union. We will keep an honourable memory of him.

With large concern, the FIR and its member federations pursue the current spreading of the Corona virus in Europe. We are not only concerned about the health aspects seizing the entire society, but because this pandemic affects in various forms the anti-fascist and remembrance work of the FIR and all member federations.

Since this week in all German concentration camp memorial places the international commemoration ceremonies on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the liberation were cancelled. These cancellations were – according to our information – coordinated by the memorial site management with the international camp committees. Only the liberation celebrations in Mauthausen in May 2020 have not yet been cancelled. However, the Mauthausen Memorial is closed until the beginning of April due to a government order. The same applies to the Auschwitz Memorial, which has been temporarily closed until the end of March. The reason given for the cancellations was that older people in particular belong to the high-risk groups whose lives are seriously endangered by illness. We welcome such preventive health measures, even if the political damage is immense in our view.

In addition, the projects of the FIR and its member federations are massively obstructed by these precautionary measures for the containment of the pandemic. In Hungary, the annual awarding of the Radnoti price had to be postponed for some months. In Italy, the traditional celebrations to 25 April, the liberation day, are actually endangered. The planned anti-fascist conference of the Russian Veterans Association must also be postponed to the second half of the year. Moreover, the great youth project “Train of a Thousand”, the commemorative train from Brussels to Auschwitz, is in danger to be cancelled due to the Europe-wide restrictions on travel possibilities and the health risks for the participants.

Such restrictions are politically painful, but what is important in this situation is that all our comrades-in-arms and especially the veterans of the anti-fascist struggle stay healthy and can continue to make their contribution to our common tasks.

It remains in the responsibility of the FIR and its member federations that after the pandemic has died down, the state institutions and the memorial places should not go over “to the agenda”.

We stand up for the fact that in all memorial places in appropriate form the liberation of the camps will be remembered also in the coming years. The understandable cancellations of this year’s commemorations must not be used as an excuse to ignore this date in the future.

Together with the survivors and their relatives as well as the anti-fascist associations, the memorial sites are obliged also in the future to organize a worthy commemoration and remembrance work corresponding to the survivors’ legacy.

The days of liberation and the Day of Victory on May 9, 1945 remain in the collective memory of the peoples and will continue to be commemorated in the future – regardless of corona virus and other restrictions.