Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Soviet Red Army, the beginning of the end of the genocidal plan put in place by the Nazis and her allies. From 1933 until 1945, the Fascist powers of Europe murdered 17 million people, Jewish, Romani, Slavic, and people who the Fascists deemed lesser or who opposed them – communists, trade unionists, disabled people, gay people, and many more.

The following is the words of a Red Army soldier, Nikolai Politanov, who aided in the liberation of Auschwitz.

“The actual camp appeared like an untidy slaughterhouse. A pungent smell hung heavily in the air… The further we walked into the site, the stronger the smell of burnt flesh became, and dirty-black ash rained down on us from the heavens, darkening the snow… Innumerable exhausted, wretched figures with shrunken faces and bald heads were standing outside of the barracks. They didn’t know that we were coming. The surprise made many of them faint. A picture that would make everyone wither away who saw it. The misery was horrifying. The ovens [of the crematoria] were still hot and some were still blazing fiercely when we approached… We were standing in a circle, everyone was silent. From the barracks more and more hungry children were emerging, reduced to skeletons and enveloped in rags. Like ants they assembled in large groups, making noise as if they were in a large school yard. With arms extended, they were waiting, begging and screaming for bread. They were whining out of despair and wiping away their tears… Only death reigned here. It smelled of it”

81 years on, it is more important than ever to remember as we face a resurgence in fascist governments today, from the Zionist Entity in Palestine, in the United States, to across Europe and beyond, there are far-right parties on the rise again, all with links to the fascists of the 20th century. These fascists want us to forget about what they did, so they can do it again, they want us to hate our neighbour, to distrust and to violently reject anyone they deem lesser.

That is why it is important to remember the Holocaust, and to recognise it is not a unique act committed by one fanatical group. The Holocaust was committed by people dedicated to racial supremacy, to expelling all who they deem lesser, and killing those who remain. The Red Army soldiers who liberated Auschwitz would see the same pain in an emaciated Palestinian in Gaza, as they would in a Jew in the camps they liberated. We see the same panic in the eyes of someone snatched off the streets in America by ICE, as someone snatched from the streets by the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.

In Wales, the fascists are organised and receive great funding from their counterparts in the US. In order to prevent another Holocaust, we must recognise that only socialism can defeat fascism, as it did in 1945. Fascism thrives when people go hungry, when the state fails them, Fascism takes this anger and twists it, and directs it against our fellow person – we must direct it at the real threat, the capitalist state.

We must resolutely fight against the Nazi Menace until victory, like the Red Army did in the Second World War.