With dismay and anger the International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR) – Association of Anti-Fascists had to learn that on Tuesday the memorial Auschwitz-Birkenau, the symbol of the industrial mass extermination of Jewish people, Sinti and Roma and others by German fascism, was desecrated with anti-Semitic slogans.

If someone thinks that with such graffiti he can erase the truth about the mass crimes or the significance of the merit of the Red Army, which liberated the camp on January 27, 1945, then this person is mistaken. The world will always remember these historical events connected with Auschwitz. And all anti-fascists will stand up for the fact that despite such desecrations there will be a dignified commemoration in the future as well. At the moment of such attacks we feel especially connected with the Auschwitz Memorial and the International Auschwitz Committee.

An effective reaction against such attacks remains the anti-fascist remembrance work. Thus the FIR plans together with the Belgian Auschwitz Foundation and the War Heritage Institute under the slogan “Train of the Thousand” for the coming year again an international youth meeting in the memorial Auschwitz.

After a patient suffering Zoltán Viczián, member of the honory presidency of FIR, died quietly on 15th of September 2021 at the age of 94 in Hungary. Our dear friend was born on 13th of January 1928.

Already at the age of 16 he fought againts Hitler and Hitler’s Hungarian troops from Salgótarján to Berlin on the side of the Red Army until the day of victory. He recounted many times when Soviet soldiers learned that the war was over, tossed their caps in joy, and fired at them. It meant everything to us. The joy that they were not destroyed in the XX. century during the barbarism, they could go home to their loved ones, people could live in peace. Zoltán Viczián after returning to Hungary quickly became involved in cleaning up the ruins and the revival of the country. He first helped in Salgótarján to the guardianship as a social worker and carried on the lives of poor and orphaned children. He founded the Heves County Football Association, was an employee of the Heves County Civil Command and has been active in MEASZ for several decades as a county leader and was also a member of the national presidency of MEASZ. He was proud to have been an honorary board member of the FIR as well too. He received many accolades for his work and was proud of the Miklós Radnóti Anti-Racist Award. In July this year a delegation from the MEASZ presidency honored him with the SUBNOR award of our Serbian sister organization in Eger. That was the last time FIR president Vilmos Hanti and a further member of MEASZ met him. We preserve his memory as an example to follow. Rest in peace!

We have all seen the dramatic pictures of the last few days from Kabul and some other parts of Afghanistan, where the advance of the Taliban has been proceeding at high speed following the announcement of the withdrawal of foreign forces. The short conclusion of these events can be summed up in the following balance: Foreign forces were supposed to bring peace, security, and democracy there for 20 years. However, they leave behind chaos and insecurity, especially for the civilian population, and the rule of fundamentalist Islamists.

1) The FIR and the international peace movement have made clear since 2001 that the “war on terror”, as it was led by the USA and its allied forces, initially still covered by a UN mandate, in Afghanistan, is not a lasting solution to the social problem. The military mission of the German Bundeswehr was approved by the parliament for 6 months (!). This turned into almost 20 years – without any tangible result.

2) On the domestic front, the presence of foreign troops in individual metropolises has actually opened up the beginnings of democratic participation. The equal participation of women in society was made possible. Nevertheless, it had no lasting effect on social structures.

3) The Afghan government and the respective presidents were mostly rulers by foreign grace, not only in the eyes of the majority of the population, but also in their own self-image. How else can it be understood that the last president was the first to leave for a foreign country with his entourage and a large sum of money before anyone else?

4) The country’s security forces, the army and police, which were supposed to protect the democratic development of the country, have been in de facto disintegration since the final withdrawal of foreign forces was implemented. They are neither able nor willing to fill the power vacuum, but handed over the respective regions to the Taliban’s armed units at a dramatic rate. Several hundred members of the army have fled with their military equipment to neighboring countries. 

5) However, the greatest drama is the situation of civilian relief workers and civilians. It is well known that the Taliban considers the „local forces,“ i.e., Afghan employees of the respective foreign armed forces as well as helpers in civilian development projects,. They are particularly at risk in the event of an expected Taliban takeover. Nevertheless, until a few days ago, there was no planning on how to ensure their protection and/or whether to grant them political asylum in the respective country. Local forces were to leave at their own expense by civilian aircraft. In addition, the asylum application was to be processed in Afghanistan itself – a procedure that already takes several weeks under normal circumstances. Germany even went so far as to deport rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan as late as July 2021, since there were also “safe regions there.” Only in the days of the biggest chaos, all politicians outdid themselves in the demand for admission of the relief forces – knowing that a regulated evacuation is no longer possible at all.

The FIR supports in this situation the appeals of the UN Secretary-General and the resolution of the UN Security Council to an immediate end of the violence. The protection of all Afghans and international citizens must be guaranteed.

The FIR calls on all states to grant asylum and reception to local forces and their families. This is the least they can do to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.

From June 30 to July 3, 1951 in Vienna took place the International peace congress of the resistance movement. This was the birthday of the International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR), the umbrella organization of veterans of the antifascist fight, deported ones and victims of Nazi-persecution from all parts of Europe. Since seventy years Internationalism was and is the answer to the nationalistic and chauvinistic ideology of the respective fascist rule. Moreover, fascist ideology and politics, racism and imperialist expansionism were and are a direct threat to all peoples. They could and can be fought only in the common struggle of all countries and peoples threatened by these regimes. Nor do we forget that fascist barbarism could only be defeated through the common struggle of peoples and especially of the armies of the anti-Hitler coalition.

The women and men of resistance and persecution wanted to support the process of democratic reorganization with a political voice throughout Europe. To this end, immediately after liberation, representatives of organizations of political prisoners and resistance fighters from 17 European countries from East and West came together to found FIAPP (Fédération Internationale des Anciens Prisonniers Politiques, International Federation of Former Political Prisoners) in Warsaw in February 1946. In 1948, the anti-fascists from Germany and Austria were also admitted to this community.

The Cold War did not leave the FIAPP unscathed. Instead of promoting the unity of the resistance fighters, a drifting apart of the political forces of anti-fascism threatened. Therefore, in the early 1950s, a new approach was made to bring together the different positions and organizations of former resistance fighters and deportees in the interest of the political effectiveness of the voice of resistance fighters throughout Europe, because the euphoria of departure of the anti-fascist new beginning had been dissipated by the reality of increasing restoration and remilitarization, East-West tension and increasing danger of war. At the end of June 1951, the survivors’ associations invited to an international peace conference in Vienna.

In this situation – as Oskar Wiesflecker, longtime secretary general of the FIR described it – he people, who had actively participated in the anti-fascist resistance and national liberation struggle against the Nazi and fascist aggressors and occupiers and had taken suffering and persecution upon themselves, recognized, that the unification of the European resistance fighters was an imperative to oppose the rebirth of Nazi fascism, to watch over the democratic freedoms that had been regained, to defend the values of the, resistance movement and to strengthen those principles that were the basis of the foundation of the United Nations Organization. This was the spirit from which the FIR was born and to which it has maintained its unbreakable loyalty to this day.

With the foundation of the organization in the summer of 1951 in Vienna, the “International Federation of Resistance Fighters” (FIR) took over the task to represent the political ideas and visions of the resistance fighters “Never again fascism! Never again war!” to represent. It represented the victims of fascism in their social and medical claims and it worked for the commemoration of the resistance struggle and the illegal resistance groups in many countries.

There is not the space here to list all the fields of political action in the past decades. This included the dissemination of knowledge about the history of the resistance struggle, which was attempted with various history conferences and several resistance movement booklets, as well as educational consultations with scientists, teachers and university lecturers. This included the struggle for peace and détente, as well as advocacy for arms limitation and disarmament initiatives not only in Europe but also in the Middle East. This included political solidarity against the persecution of anti-fascist associations and their members, which was successful in the support of the German VVN against its banning trial in 1962, and was reflected in international solidarity actions for persecuted Greek anti-fascists or against occupational bans in the FRG. This included the broad mobilization against historical revisionists from the former SS associations, who contributed to the rehabilitation of the Nazi regime with tradition meetings.

Since 2004, the organization carries the name “International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR) – Federation of Anti-Fascists”. Today the FIR has member organizations in more than 25 European countries, Israel and Latin America. The political circumstances have changed, but the central task is fixed in the slogan “Never again!”.

This means the preservation of the historical truth about the resistance struggle, about the reality of fascism and the role of the anti-Hitler coalition, the Allied forces – among them the Soviet soldiers who bore the brunt of the war – in the crushing of fascist barbarism.

The FIR and its member federations act as an international network locally and on European level against racism, anti-Semitism, anti-gypsyism, xenophobia, neo-fascism, nationalism and right-wing populism. They support groups and networks that oppose such developments.

The FIR as “Ambassadors of Peace” of the United Nations has in recent decades repeatedly advocated non-military solutions to conflicts in the world. It acts both against causes of war and against war-mongers, who want to enforce their imperialistic goals, their need for raw materials and their geopolitical interests, and military alliances, which regard themselves as “world police”.

The strength of the FIR is its commonality, which arises despite different political orientations, social visions or religious values. Every way to anti-fascism is welcome in the FIR. This unity must be renewed repeatedly, especially now that the generation of survivors is leaving us. All member federations are called to open their structure for today’s generations. All member federations are challenged to share the ideals of the anti-fascist heritage with the generations of today, who bring their own issues and perspectives to the political debates.

Based on the common ground of the struggle against fascism, the associations of FIR preserve the legacy of the survivors and continue to stand up for peace, political and social human rights and democracy, “a new world of peace and freedom” in the next decade.

Once again, we have to witness that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict violence as a means of conflict primarily affects the civilian population. The clashes began many days ago with the attempt to enforce the settlement policy, which has been unequivocally condemned by the United Nations, and which amounts to the expulsion of the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem. Claiming “Jewish property rights” that existed in the area 70 years ago, nationalist settlers seek to evict Palestinian residents. Protests against forced evictions and restrictions on visiting Islamic places of worship have been met with reprisals by the Israeli government. After the Israeli military and other security forces pushed escalation in East Jerusalem over several days, with several hundred injured on the Palestinian side, Hamas began firing rockets at Israeli towns. This in turn led to massive bombardment of Gaza by Israeli air forces, destroying civilian infrastructure and other positions. Neither military action can solve the problem. We appeal for immediate political talks to end the threat to civilians.

It is evident that the Netanyahu government has allowed this confrontation to escalate – and on the backs of Israeli and Palestinian civilians. The fact that Netanyahu is primarily concerned with his own political survival makes his behavior all the more reprehensible. After he was unable to achieve his own governing majority in parliament despite several new elections, he wants to use the escalation of the military situation – as the historian Moshe Zimmermann clearly analyzed it – to prevent his political opponents, who include Arab Israelis, from forming a political coalition. At the same time, he uses the escalation to pressure the Biden administration to position itself – in line with previous Trump policies – in favor of the concept of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, which would permanently prevent a political solution with the Palestinian side.

This has created an explosive situation in the Middle East that can only be stopped through political talks. For one thing is clear. With these escalations, there will be no peaceful solution to the conflict – observers are worried about a third intifada, which would once again claim many hundreds of victims among all the people living in the Middle East.

The FIR as “Ambassador of Peace of the United Nations” calls for de-escalation – supported by the United Nations. Hamas must immediately stop rocket attacks on Israeli cities. The Israeli army must immediately stop attacks on Gaza. In addition, the political allies must make it clear to the Israeli government that they are not prepared to support a military escalation, but are committed to political steps towards a solution.