International Brigade Memorial Trust
International Brigade memorial in Madrid defaced by fascist graffiti in January 2018. An example of regular attacks on anti-fascist memory in Spain, as mentioned by speaker Almudena Cros.
The third in a series of online panel discussions on historical memory and anti-fascism in the 20th century was held on 22 June over Zoom and is available to stream here.
This event, hosted by the Marx Memorial Library and the Society for Co-operation in Russian and Soviet Studies, brought together speakers representing European anti-fascist memorial groups to discuss ongoing attempts to revise and distort anti-fascist history across the continent.
The panel began with Simone Rossi of the Italian anti-fascist fighters’ memorial association, ANPI, who described how the public consensus which honoured the anti-fascist resistance in Italy has been distorted and revised in the last three decades – parallel with the resurgence of far-right parties.
Almudena Cros, President of AABI (Asociación de Amigos de las Brigadas Internacionales), the IBMT's sister-organisation in Spain, spoke about the continuity between Franco’s fascist regime and the modern Spanish right-wing, the conspiracy of silence over Franco-era atrocities and attacks on Republican and International Brigade monuments.
Finally historian Vladimir Vasilik, of St Petersburg University, debunked old and new myths about the history of the Second World War which attempt to draw moral and ideological equivalences between the anti-fascist Red Army and Nazi Germany.
The last seminar in the series saw IBMT Chair Jim Jump speak about the International Brigades and the legacy of anti-fascism which they represent, held in November 2020 and available to stream here.
Posted on 24 June 2021.
