At the beginning of December, we learned from our comrades of FNDIRP that Serge Wourgaft had passed away at the age of 108. This news fills us with deep sadness, as he was a comrade who was active for many decades of his life for the common anti-fascist idea.
Serge Wourgaft was born in Odessa on August 31, 1917. His family came to France in the 1920s. As a young man, he took part in the Resistance’s fight against the German occupation, was arrested and deported to Buchenwald concentration camp. As a member of the French inmate group, he contributed to the self-liberation of the camp on April 11, 1945. Even after the liberation, he was responsible for the medical service in the camp.
After his return to France, he was press attache to the Minister of Food Supply, editor at the Reuters news agency and member of the cabinet of the Minister of Public Works and Transport.
In 1957, on behalf of his organization FNDIRP, he began working for the World Federation of Veterans (FMAC/WVF), of which he became Secretary General in 1979. In this function, he worked closely with the FIR, which was expressed, for example, in the war veterans’ “Rome Appeal” on company policy. When he gave up this function in 1997, he was elected President of the FMAC/WVF for another three years. In 2000, he relinquished this function and became Honorary President.
He also held other social functions, e.g. as Chairman of the Special Committee of NGOs for Disarmament in Geneva or as Chairman of the Liaison Committee for the Transportation of the Disabled (COLITRAH).
Serge WOURGAFT was highly honored as a Resistance fighter, Commander of the Legion of Honor, Grand Officer in the National Order of Merit and recipient of the War Cross, the Resistance Medal and numerous foreign awards.
He was associated with his organization FNDIRP until his last breath. In May 1998, he was elected a member of the FNDIRP’s Honorary Committee. Since 2013, he was editor of the FNDIRP’s monthly newspaper “Le Patriote Résistant”. He was also actively involved in the “Concours National de la Résistance et de la Déportation” and in other contexts.
Our condolences go out to his family and his French comrades. We will keep Serge Wourgaft in honorable memory.
Obituary Serge Wourgaft (1917-2024)
2. Dezember 2024
Obituary Giacomo Notari (1927 – 2024)
29. November 2024
It is with sadness and respect for his life’s work that we bid farewell to Giacomo Notari, partisan and long-time witness to the Italian Resistanza. He died a few days before his 97th birthday in his home town of Marmoreto di Busana (Reggio Emilia).
Born on December 6, 1927, he – like his brother Giuseppe – joined the partisans as a teenager. He joined the 145th Garibaldi Brigade “Franco Casoli” at the age of 17. His combat name was “Willy”. Their operational area was the mountains near Reggio and the area around Ligonchio, Busana and Cervarezza. He took part in sabotage operations against bridges and telephone lines. Of particular importance during the retreat of the German units in April 1945 was the defense of the Ligonchio hydroelectric power plant against its planned destruction. His brother Giuseppe was killed on March 11, 1945. Giacomo Notari was not only a fighter, he was also a staunch anti-fascist and became a member of the Communist Party as a partisan.
After the end of the war, he alternated between working in his father’s fields and political commitment to a new anti-fascist beginning. He attended evening classes at the “party school” in Bologna, became a local councillor in Busana and was elected to the provincial council in the early 1960s. He was mayor of Ligonchio from 1970 to 1983 and president of ANPI in the province of Reggio Emilia from 2002 to 2016. He combined this role with his great commitment as a contemporary witness. He initiated and supported regional commemorative work and the “Banditi e rebelli” exhibition, which also received international recognition. In this work, he was connected with FIR.
Giacomo Notari lived in his home town of Marmoreto di Busana until the end. He died at the end of November 2024. We express our deepest sympathy to his family and his comrades from ANPI on the loss of this important anti-fascist personality.
April 2025 – International youth meeting in Buchenwald
27. September 2024
Some will remember the spring of 2008, when the International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR) and the then “Institut des Veterans” (IV) (Belgium) hosted an international youth meeting entitled “Train des Milles” (“Train of a Thousand”) at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial. The title of the meeting was reminiscent of the historic deportation trains from Brussels to the extermination camps in the east, in which around 1000 people were deported to extermination per train. A large number of participants from all over Europe started in the Belgian capital and took a special train to Weimar, where the youth meeting took place. Several hundred young people from Thuringia and other parts of Germany awaited them in Weimar. There they learned about the history of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps and took part in various events. At that time, there was still the opportunity to talk to contemporary witnesses. The memorial march from Weimar to the Ettersberg made a big impression. There, after the event organized by the International Committee Buchenwald-Dora and Commandos (IKBD), the meeting ended with a “Youth Rally” at the bell tower. Representatives of the IKBD, the Belgian government and young people spoke here, reaffirming the legacy of the Buchenwald survivors with their words. It was not only the commemoration that was remembered, but also the European meeting of young people under the label of anti-fascist remembrance. When people talk about a united Europe today, it is the joint action of all parts of the anti-Hitler coalition that forms the basis of this transnational unity.
In the following years, further youth meetings were held in this format at the Auschwitz Memorial, at this occasion with the help of the Auschwitz Foundation (Belgium). In 2020, a youth meeting that had already been prepared fell victim to the coronavirus pandemic. Nevertheless, everyone involved was convinced that this form of historical education work with young people should be continued. Last fall, Jean Cardoen and Jill Lampaert presented their experiences with visits to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial at the congress in Barcelona and presented the planned project of an international youth meeting there. Following various preliminary discussions, the project has now been finalized to such an extent that we can now provide all member associations and interested parties with initial, binding information.
For April 2025, the Belgian War Heritage Institute (WHI – successor to the IV) and the FIR, in consultation with the IKBD, are now preparing a repeat of the impressive youth event held in 2008 to mark the IKBD’s liberation ceremony in Buchenwald.
The plan is for all participants to arrive on Friday (April 4, 2025), there will be intensive content-related activities on Saturday and Sunday, and the return journey of the foreign participants is scheduled for Monday (April 7, 2025). This schedule has been agreed with the IKBD and the Buchenwald Memorial. So far, guided visits to the concentration camp memorial by young people for young people, discussion groups on remembrance work, a joint concert, the memorial march from Weimar to the Ettersberg and participation in the IKBD rally on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of self-liberation are planned. There it is planned that the Buchenwald oath will be repeated for future generations. A youth rally is also planned as the final event this year as well as – optionally – a short visit to Weimar as the “City of Classics” and the early NSDAP rule.
It is important for all interested parties to contact political and social youth groups, teachers and other multipliers in the second half of 2024 in order to obtain an overview of the expected number of participants in good time. In coordination with the Thuringian Youth Hostel Association, overnight accommodation capacities have been reserved, but these must be fixed until the end of the year.
It is essential that all young people familiarize themselves with the history of Buchenwald Concentration Camp and the significance of remembrance for today and tomorrow in the run-up to the meeting. This is an important prerequisite for ensuring that this meeting is not just a symbolic “one-day event”, but can have an impact on raising young people’s awareness for the future.
Obituary Dušan Čukić
7. Juni 2024
We are deeply saddened to announce the death of honorary presidency member and long-time president of the Serbian member federation SUBNOR. He died at the age of 87. A journalist for many years, he devoted his retirement to his work in SUBNOR. It was also thanks to him that the Serbian comrades became active full members of FIR again after years as an observer. We remember with satisfaction the important Balkan Peace Conference of SUBNOR and FIR in Belgrade, which took place on his initiative. Meetings of the FIR Executive Committee in Belgrade and joint celebrations to mark the anniversaries of the liberation of Yugoslavia were made possible with his active support.
We were able to experience the high esteem in which he was held in Serbia. The Serbian government not only paid tribute to him as a person, but also to SUBNOR and its decades of socio-political work.
Dušan Čukić embodied the ideals of the FIR in his work and his person. For this reason, he was appointed a member of the Honorary Presidency at the XVIII Regular Congress of FIR in Reggio Emilia, a distinction that was confirmed at the last FIR Congress in Barcelona.
Due to his serious illness in recent months, he was no longer able to be as active in this task as he would certainly have liked. However, we are sure that he was committed to the common cause until his last breath.
Our deepest sympathy goes out to his wife and three children, as well as to his comrades in the Serbian SUBNOR association.
Vilmos Hanti, President
Dr. Ulrich Schneider, Secretary General
Urgend call for European Election
26. Mai 2024
Call of FIR for the European Parliament Electoral Campaign
9. April 2024
The next elections to the European Parliament will take place in June 2024.
The International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR) – Association of Anti-fascists remembers that the ideals of a common peaceful Europe based on the resistance fight against the fascist barbarism and the politics of violence and by extermination of Nazism. Our goal also for today’s Europe is embedded in the “oath of Buchenwald”: “Creating a new world of peace and freedom!”
In recent years, the policy and development of the European Union did not correspond to the interests of large parts of the people. In addition, we see the tendencies to foreclosure of the “fortress Europe” and the militarization of the European Union. On the other hand, the Covid pandemic has forced the EU to initiate the most impressive financing program for the revival of the economy and civil progress of the member countries.
Second, we are facing a significant upraise of openly racist, nationalist and far right parties in many European countries. They are represented in national, regional and local assemblies, in addition they influence the government in several states with their anti-democratic and racist policies.
Although we know that inside our ranks (as well as within other democratic movements) there are different perspectives on the role of the European Union, we should react common in this electoral campaign. The anti-fascist, anti-racist and peace-moving organizations, and groups, as well as trade unions, religious groups and social movements must thus join their forces, engaging to successfully counter such a scenario. The basis of this action is not a vote for a party, but a common advocacy for a European Union of the people. That means:
• opposing any form of nationalism, separatist attempts, racial discrimination, or xenophobia, working for the rights of the refugees and minorities,
• promoting better and decent living and working conditions in all countries,
• to qualify the economic and social policy courses, by placing at the center the realization of the full equality of treatment and rights between all genders;
• to make education, schooling and training pathways as the fundamental instruments of integration, social and individual development of European citizens, first and foremost towards the younger generations;
• opposing any form of Holocaust denial, denial of the resistance fight, destruction of memorial sites, falsification of history and rehabilitation of SS criminals,
• advocating a peace policy based not on domination in matter of foreign policy, but on non-military conflict solutions. Therefore to create the conditions to succeed in a new European Security Conference – “Helsinki 2” as it is often called – to set a new reference framework for international relations and get out of the serious ongoing crisis.
This Europe is possible if the peoples actively and vocally campaign for their rights and leave a mark through the next elections to the European Parliament. Because the trend toward abstentions strengthen the risk that far right forces will prevail in many member states, leading, FIR call for vote against far right parties and will do its best on an international level to connect existing initiatives, social organizations, trade unions and movements in order to become a common political voice in Europe.
Joint statement by World Veterans Federation and International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR) concerning the terrorist attack in Moscow:
24. März 2024
The two presidents of WVF and FIR, El Mostafa El Ktiri and Vilmos Hanti, strongly condemn all forms of terrorism, express their astonishment at the terrorist acts perpetrated in Moscow, and express their condolences to the families of the victims.
Communiqué commun de FMAC et de FIR concernant l’attaque terroriste à Moscou:
Les deux présidents du FMAC et de FIR, El Mostafa El Ktiri et Vilmos Hanti, condamnent fermement toutes les formes de terrorisme, font état de leur étonnement quant aux actes terroristes perpétrés à Moscou, et expriment leurs condoléances aux membres des familles des victimes.
Gemeinsame Erklärung des WVF und der FIR zum terroristischen Angriff in Moskau:
Die beiden Präsidenten des WVF und der FIR, El Mostafa El Ktiri und Vilmos Hanti, verurteilen alle Formen des Terrorismus aufs Schärfste, zeigen sich erstaunt über die Terrorakte in Moskau und sprechen den Angehörigen der Opfer ihr Beileid aus.
Публикация совместного заявления WVF и FIR по поводу теракта в Москве
Президенты WVF и FIR Эль Мостафа Эль Ктири и Вилмос Ханти решительно осуждают все формы терроризма, выражают свое удивление по поводу террористических актов, совершенных в Москве, и выражают соболезнования семьям погибших.
Joint appeal for world peace and security
23. März 2024
During a meeting of the President of the World Veterans Federation(WVF) and the President of the International Federation of Resistance Fighter(FIR) – Association of Anti-fascists in Budapest, the following declaration was published:
We, the President of the World Veterans Federation and the President of the International Resistance Federation, are deeply concerned by the conflicts and hostilities that persist throughout the world, sowing suffering and distress among innocent civilian populations. We unreservedly support peace efforts in ongoing conflicts, based on justice and in conformity with international law and the United Nations Charter. We demand the immediate cessation of acts of destruction against humanity.
Recent events around the world remind us of the urgent need to act to put an end to violence, and we strongly condemn attacks against civilians and essential infrastructure, which are a grave violation of international humanitarian law. We urge all parties to respect their relevant obligations and to allow unhindered humanitarian access to affected populations.
We appeal to the conscience of all actors involved in these conflicts to put an end to the violence, taking into account their international legal obligations.
Together, united in our commitment to peace and collective global security, we make an urgent appeal to support our efforts to end conflict and build a better future for all the world’s peoples.
FIR congratulates on International Women’s Day
8. März 2024
It is by no means a new insight, but it must be emphasized repeatedly that women played an indispensable role in the ranks of the anti-Hitler coalition. They were among the active fighters in the ranks of the Soviet partisans, like Zoia Kosmodemyanskaya, whom we remembered in the FIR bulletin some time ago. They were fighters in the illegal resistance movement, like the Dutch woman Hannie Schaft, the “girl with the red hair”, or they were active in the student resistance, like Sophie Scholl, a member of the German “White Rose” group. We mention these three names in the knowledge that in all countries where there was anti-fascist resistance, women played a great role in the ranks of the resistance movement. At the risk of their lives, they fought for freedom, democracy and human rights, for international solidarity and peaceful coexistence between peoples. These women also broke through the traditional gender roles assigned to them and lived out their emancipation.
When they wanted to redefine their social role after the destruction of fascist barbarism, they often had to experience that the male mechanisms of domination had not been abolished simply by overcoming the old order. In many cases, they had to assert actual equality and recognition of gender justice in everyday political and social life. They also made a great contribution here.
In many FIR member federations, women played an important role and made their perspective clear. FIR has expressed its appreciation of this lifetime achievement by appointing Esther Bejarano (Germany), Celine van de Hoek de Vries (Netherlands), Lore Krüger (Germany), Barbara Piotrowska (Poland), Delfina Tomás (Spain) and Marie-Louise Vanderborght-Veldemann (Belgium) as members of the Honorary Presidium.
We know very well that symbolic recognition is still a long way from making gender equality an everyday reality. This also includes social justice, as called for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, equal pay for work of equal value, equal access to education and qualifications, decent working and living conditions, the creation of a framework for childcare and the division of household and care work that enables women to take their place in society. We recall how many women have linked their fight for equal rights with the advocacy of a socially just, democratic and peaceful society, as already propagated by the German socialist and women’s rights activist Clara Zetkin at the resolution of the first International Socialist Women’s Conference in Stuttgart in 1907. Although the focus was initially on political equality and women’s suffrage, even then it was also about social equality.
This means something completely different to the “feminist” issues pushed to the fore by the media today. Anyone who talks about “feminist foreign policy” and at the same time advocates militarization and the prolongation of war is trampling on the interests of women in all war zones. Those who criticize the oppression of women through reactionary, religiously legitimized dress codes, but at the same time engage in racist persecution and exclusion of people with a Muslim background, do not stand for equality and tolerance.
FIR and its member federations therefore do not see International Women’s Day as a “symbolic day” for women’s emancipation, but as an obligation for all of us to work towards these goals 365 days a year. With this in mind, we wish all women in our organizations and beyond all the best for International Women’s Day with the historic slogan: “Bread and Roses!”
FIR is concerned about Nazi-marching in Budapest
12. Februar 2024
On February 10, in Budapest anti-fascists from several European countries commemorated – invited by the Hungarian antifascist organization MEASZ – the 79th anniversary of liberation of the town by the soviet army, supported by the Hungarian resistance. We were glad to have important speaker, the deputy major of Budapest, representatives of the civil society and – as high-light – the Holocaust survivor Katlin Sommer on the floor.
Anti-fascists from Italy and Germany condemned in its speeches the way the Hungarian justice handle the trial against two young persons they are accused for violence against political opponents. We see in this trial a harsh disregarding of the rules of law.
We are strongly concerned that this day, accepted and supported by the Hungarian government, a Nazi-marching to glorify the SS, Wehrmacht, and Hungarian collaborators took place on the other side of the river with about more than 1.000 participants from several European countries.
We are also concerned about the fact that, while the Hungarian police protected the Nazi-marching, it hindered a group of German and Austrian anti-fascists to participate at the commemorative event for the liberation of Budapest. The police stopped their bus outside of Budapest and controlled a long time all guests in this bus, so they could not come just in time to the ceremony.
