"One of the biggest traumas that people had in the #Bershad #ghetto was that no one would notice the death,” #Shternshis told the #Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “So the #song that did talk about the lack of empathy, but also talked about the funeral, was actually a fantasy that all these things would happen — a prayer, a grave.”

This is Shternshis’ second “#Yiddish Glory” #album aiming to resurrect #music from witnesses of the #Holocaust in the #SovietUnion. Her first album in 2018, titled “#YiddishGlory: The Lost #Songs of #WorldWarII,” was nominated for a #Grammy.

That project was the first she reaped from the discovery of #Beregovsky’s documents, and it focused largely on songs collected from #Russian soldiers who fought against the #Nazis. The “Silenced Songs” album centers almost entirely on #Jews who lived in the #ghettos and #concentrationcamps of #Ukraine’s #Vinnytsia region, which was occupied by #Romania and #Nazi #Germany from 1941 to 1944."

jta.org/2026/07/17/culture/los…

Today in Labor History July 15, 1954: Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco amended their vagrancy law to include LGBTQ people, including punishments of hard labor and detention in concentration camps, where they were routinely subjected to sexual violence. The majority of detainees were working-class gay men and trans women. It was not uncommon to hear upper class and aristocratic gays and lesbians refer to the dictatorship as a “great” historical period. Indeed, Salvador Dali continued to fawn over the fascist dictator until his death, in spite of the fact that Franco executed Dali’s own lover, the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, in the 1930s. And Andre Breton kicked Dali out of the Paris Surrealist Group for his fascist leanings.

Fascism continued in Spain up until Franco’s death, in 1975. Today, however, both Barcelona and Madrid are often described as among the most LGBTQ-friendly cities in the world. In 2005, Spain became one of the first countries in the world to legalize gay marriage. And Madrid’s Pride event is one of the largest in Europe, in spite of the fact that the city remains one of the most politically conservative regions of Spain.

You can see the trailer for Las noches de Tefía, about the concentration camp in the Canary Islands, that Franco used for LGBTQ prisoners: youtube.com/watch?v=v5nk7ikWdU…

#workingclass #LaborHistory #lgbtq #fascism #spain #dictatorship #franco #torture #prison #concentrationcamps #dali #lorca #madrid #barcelona #homophobia #transphobia

Today in Labor History July 8, 1898: May Picqueray was born. She was a French anarchist, trade unionist and pacifist, who published the pacifist, anti-militarist periodical Le Réfractaire from 1974 to 1983. In 1921, in response to the silence of the French press on the convictions of Sacco and Vanzetti, she sent a parcel bomb containing a defensive grenade and leaflets to the American embassy. Her efforts helped mobilize French journalists, without harming any people and only causing damage to material. In 1922, as a delegate of the Metalworkers union, she visited Moscow, where she climbed on a table full of Red Trade Union officials to denounce their having a luxurious banquet while the common people starved. She refused to shake hands with Trotsky because of his responsibility for crushing the Kronstadt rebellion, and his betrayal of Nestor Makhno. During the Spanish Civil War, she helped transport orphans out of the country. During World War II, she helped people escape French concentration camps. She also was a participant in the French uprising of May 1968, participated in anti-nuclear campaigns and supported war resisters.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #maypicqueray #nestormakhno #trotsky #kronstadt #rebellion #civilwar #antinuclear #activism #nuclear #concentrationcamps #SaccoAndVanzetti #bomb #union #spain #france

Today in Labor History June 4, 1939: The U.S. blocked the MS St. Louis from landing in Florida. The ship carried 963 Jewish refugees who were fleeing the Nazis. Canada also refused. As a result, the ship was forced back to Europe. Over 200 of its passengers ultimately died in Nazi concentration camps. The ordeal is also known as the Voyage of the Damned. This event has been depicted in numerous books, including Julian Barnes’s novel, A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters (1989); Bodie and Brock Thoene's novel Munich Signature (1991); and Leonardo Padura's novel Herejes (2013). Cordell Hull, who was Secretary of State at the time, and who led the calls to turn the refugees away, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1944. It was one of the worst Nobel prizes ever awarded (along with Henry Kissinger (1973), who facilitated bloody dictatorships in Chile and Argentina, genocides in Bangladesh and East Timor, and carpet bombing of Cambodia. Or Elihu Root (1912), the U.S. Secretary of War who oversaw the brutal repression of the Filipino independence movement. And let’s not forget Shimon Peres, Yitzak Rabin and Yasser Arafat (1994), who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize despite their histories of human rights abuses. Or Aung San Suu Kyi (1991). Or Mikhail Gorbachev (1990), who sent tanks into the Baltic republics less than a year after winning his “peace” prize, killing numerous civilians. Or Barack Obama (2009), who began assassinating civilians with his drones and arresting more immigrants than his predecessor, George W. Bush, not long after winning his Nobel. Or Woodrow Wilson (1919), an outright racist and apologist for slavery, who sent troops to occupy Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, and to “intervene” in Cuba, Honduras and Panama, and who oversaw the Palmer raids that led to over 10,000 arrests and over 500 deportations of union leaders, peace activists, socialists and anarchists. Or Menachem Begin (1978), who four years after receiving his “peace” prize launched the bloody invasion of Lebanon, and who refused to fire Ariel Sharon, even after the Kahan Commission found Sharon culpable for the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #Nazis #Fascism #Jews #holocaust #NobelPrize #massacre #genocide #antisemitism #imperialism #invasion #occupation #ConcentrationCamps #HistorialFiction #novel #books #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History May 12, 1940: Edgar Lion, a 20-year-old Austrian Jewish student at the University of Edinburgh, was arrested by British police and shipped off to the Isle of Man with thousands of other Jewish detainees. The British government locked them all up in hotels surrounded by barbed wire. He was later deported to Canada, where he was interned with 2,300 other Jewish refugees in camps alongside German Nazis and forced to perform brutal physical labor for virtually no pay. “There were real Nazis interned with us! They were Nazis who happened to be caught by the war in Great Britain. They were bragging, and they kept telling us, ‘wait till Hitler wins the war, we’ll cut all your throats!’”

As appalling as the Trump administration is, with its arrests, deportations, and use of brutal concentration camps for innocent immigrants, as well as many legal residents and citizens, it is a misrepresentation of history to suggest that this sort of behavior is similar only to that of the Nazis, and is somehow extraordinary for modern democracies like the U.S., Britain and Canada. Concentration Camps, with forced labor, brutal living conditions, and sometimes torture and violence against inmates were operated by numerous so-called democratic Western nations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and even today. Australia used them during both World Wars, and currently runs some for refugees on Nauru and Manus Islands. During both World Wars, Canada imprisoned 8,579 male "aliens of enemy nationality" in concentration camps with forced labor, including thousands of Jews. They also interned Japanese residents. Denmark, Sweden and Finland also had concentration camps. French concentration camps, along with the torture and starvation inflicted on their inmates, and the casualties from its war of conquest in Algeria, resulted in up to 1 million deaths. And then there were thousands of Jews who were imprisoned in concentration camps under the Vichy government, most ultimately deported to Germany, where they were executed. Even Germany’s legacy of concentration camps predates Hitler, with deadly concentration camps utilized during the Herero and Namaqua genocide they committed in Africa (1904-1908). In addition to their internment of Jews during World War II, Britain also ran offshore and land-based gulags in Ireland in the 1920s, which housed over 500 men, under brutal conditions, without charge or trial. They also ran concentration camps on the Isle of Man during both world wars.

The U.S., in particular, has a long, sordid history of using concentration camps that precede the ones they used during World War II to imprison Japanese-Americans. The first documented U.S. concentration camps used for a specific ethnic group occurred in 1838, when President Van Buren imprisoned Cherokee in camps at Ross's Landing (Chattanooga, Tennessee), Fort Payne, Alabama, and Fort Cass (Charleston, Tennessee). Many died in these camps from disease and hunger. In 1862, Minnesota executed 38 Dakota warriors in the largest single-day mass execution in U.S. history. President Lincoln pardoned another 361, but placed them in a concentration camp. And in the following winter, another 1600 Dakota men, women and children were forced into other concentration camps. Up to 300 died from disease in these camps. Thousands of other indigenous people were forced into U.S. concentration camps throughout the 1800s and early 1900s. The U.S. also operated brutal concentration camps for prisoners and civilians during its war on the Philippines in 1901. During the 1950s-1960s, the U.S. maintained concentration camps for political dissidents, primarily communists, but officially never used them. More recently, there are the examples of Abu Ghraib, in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Under Reagan, there were plans to imprison thousands of Central American Solidarity activists in concentration camps. And today, Trump continues to talk about sending “homegrowns” to offshore gulags in El Salvador, Guantanamo Bay, and Africa.

Image: Edgar Lion, age 98, in red, with gray hair and glasses, at a podium, with the quote told to him by Nazis, who were interned with him in Canada: "Wait till Hitler wins the war, we will cut out all your throats."

#workingclass #LaborHistory #fascism #nazis #prison #concentrationcamps #humanrights #antisemitism #colonialism #imperialism #worldwar #trump #hitler #reagan #guantanamo #elsalvador #cecot #abughraib #indigenous #japanese #philippines #holocaust #genocide