‘Apparently, the denazification process is unfinished. Worse, a new variant of Hitlerism may be surging in Mainland Asia.’
AT war. We were. Eight decades ago: “The victories of February had made hardened veterans of the front-line troops on Bataan and they were eager to pursue the enemy. Men on patrol moved forward aggressively…One patrol from General Bluemel’s sector in II Corps actually pushed as far forward as the former Abucay line whereupon the general proposed to Parker that a reconnaissance in force be made to that line preparatory to a restoration of the first main line of resistance. He was not alone in urging a general counteroffensive.” [Louis Morton. Chapter XIX: The Japanese Withdrawal. United States Army In World War II: The War in the Pacific: The Fall Of The Philippines. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, Department of the Army, First Printed 1953]
The Battle of Bataan was entering its third month and the stalemate on the Peninsula favored the USAFFE as it meant that the Japanese invaders could not fully exploit Manila Bay. Meanwhile in Manila: “Stories have crept out of Fort Santiago. Men are being tortured. Several have died because of the ‘water-cure.’ Blows, lashings, chains, hysterical screams. Tanco ate with me. Related the manner of his investigation…Stories of men tied upside down for days, without food nor water. Stories of men under whose fingernails sharp sticks were inserted. Stories of men clubbed with bats on the back, the shoulders and then the head…Every time a Japanese manhandles a Filipino, anti-Japanese hatred increases. Fort Santiago is the most powerful propaganda arm of the United States.” [Diary of Victor Buencamino, March 7, 1942 ]
Deaths on the battlefield, deaths in the torture chambers. All because the democrats, the liberals, the socialists, the evangelicals, the anarchists, and other anti-fascists failed to unite, enabling the Hitlerites to hijack state power in Italy, Germany and Japan. Is this failure being replicated in our 21st century?
The United Nations General Assembly via Resolution A/RES/75/169 c. 16 December 2020 “Emphasizes once more the recommendation of the Special Rapporteur that “any commemorative celebration of the Nazi regime, its allies and related organizations, whether official or unofficial, should be prohibited” by States, emphasizes that such manifestations do injustice to the memory of the countless victims of the Second World War and negatively influence children and young people, and stresses in this regard that it is important that States take measures, in accordance with international human rights law, to counteract any celebration of the Nazi SS organization and all its integral parts, including the Waffen SS, and that failure by States to effectively address such practices is incompatible with the obligations of States Members of the United Nations under its Charter.”
Moreover, UN human rights experts had unequivocally condemned “heinous acts of intimidation and violence against members of the Roma minority in Ukraine…in particular against its most vulnerable members, women and children.” Reportedly, the perpetrators were members of extreme right-wing groups, such as the so-called “Sich-C14” and the “National Brigades”. [https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23385&LangID=E] “These attacks demonstrate a disturbing pattern of systematic persecution of Roma in Ukraine, compounded by rising hate speech and stigmatization, which appears to be nurtured by the current political and economic situation in the country,” the UN experts warned. They deplored the apparent absence of effective measures by the Ukrainian authorities to protect members of the Roma minority. [https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/07/1015022]
During World War II nearly 34,000 Jewish Ukrainians were murdered within 48 hours by Nazis and fascists in a ravine known as Babi Yar in the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv. “Babi Yar is the biggest mass grave of the Holocaust…the most quickly filled mass grave,” said Natan Sharansky, chairman of the supervisory board of the Babi Yar Holocaust memorial center. [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-holocaust-center-names-159-nazis-who-took-part-in-massacre-of-33771-jews/ar-AAPd3ua] As for the recent past, the anti-Semitism report for 2017 published by the Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs under Education Minister Naftali Bennett in time for the International Day of Holocaust Remembrance highlighted Ukraine as unusual in Eastern Europe for the alleged increase in attacks there. [https://www.jta.org/2018/01/28/israel/report-ukraine-had-more-anti-semitic-incidents-than-all- former-soviet-countries-combined] In a joint letter to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Front Line Defenders, and Freedom House described a series of hate-motivated violent incidents and harassment by radical groups (C14, Right Sector, Traditsii i Poryadok, Karpatska Sich) against Roma, LGBT people, feminists, and rights activists. [https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/14/ukraine-investigate-punish-hate-crimes]
The Fuhrer had certain priorities: “The Crimea was of particular interest to Nazi Germany.
Not only did it have strategic military value (the southern flank guaranteed control of Ukraine), it was also an important component of Nazi ideology. Hitler decided that the Crimea, after resettlement by ethnic Germans from southern Tyrol and Romania, would be transformed into a pure German colony called Gotenland (the Land of Goths), whose main cities, Simferopol’ and Sevastopol’, would henceforth be known respectively as Gotenberg and Theodorichhafen. As part of these plans, the Crimean Tatars, who like the Slavs were considered subhumans (Untermenschen) in the Nazi racial hierarchy, would have to be removed from the peninsula.” [Paul Robert Magocsi. A history of Ukraine : the land and its peoples. Second, Revised and Expanded Edition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press Incorporated, 2010, pp. 669-670] The Hitlerites were defeated yet left a poison pill: “The memory of the Second World War remains a controversial topic, especially in relations between Russia, Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic States.” [Marco Siddi (2016) “The Ukraine crisis and European memory politics of the Second World War,” European Politics and Society]
Apparently, the denazification process is unfinished. Worse, a new variant of Hitlerism may be surging in Mainland Asia.
