St Mary's in Elkin Park. Also known as Fox Chase Cemetery, Elkins Park, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, USA
Canada has a couple monuments to the SS Galician built by the Ukrainian Nazis who escaped here. There was some pushback a few years ago but now everyone is a nazi sympathizer so :shrek-pixel-despair:
Why doesn't anybody simply smash them? Unwillingness? Fear of prosecution?
I'm quite sure outrage over it lands in our favour more than not, much like when memorials to Thatcher or Churchill over here get defaced or smashed, the right puts up a lot of outrage but the topic's high visibility results in more people becoming educated about them which always moves the needle our way on top of creating a bit of copycatting for a while.
They get vandalized sometimes but I don't know if any have been recently
You'd probably have to steal some heavy construction equipment or something to do any real damage too it. Stone and concrete are hard to fuck up with hand tools.
What did the fascists use when they destroyed the entire partisan memorial cemetery in Bosnia in a single night? https://twitter.com/SamBeharic/status/1537035108015824896
700 grave stones
That and all the other arguments against adventurism. This would be adventurism directed at a symbolic target, too, not even a practical one.
:wojak-nooo: "nooooo don't pull down nazi flags that would be adventurisssssmo"
Ffs this site needs to get a grip on telling people not to do things. The people here seem to want others to do nothing except go to meeting and talk to other communists or make unions and literally fuck all else.
Things you should definitely and can practically do:
Public agitation graffiti messages and/or bannering
Sabo shit, such as but not limited to tree spiking
Pull down nazi stickers and posters
Pull down nazi flags
Punch nazis in the streets
Smash everything that glorifies nazis
Make everything nazi in public, untenable.
It is all valid and useful action that people at an individual level can and should take, especially as likelihood of capture is exceptionally small and even when caught punishment is absolutely fuck all. It's just property damage ffs nobody is killing anyone why are americans here all so fucking soft. It blows my mind. "Noooooo don't spray paint that wall it's adventuriiiismooooooooo!!!"
Nobody is saying it's going to bring about the revolution but little things by lots of people have value in the grander scheme of things. "Adventurism" is limited to stuff that will pull people out of organising for years (or indefinitely) for less value than that person would have been performing smaller acts in the same time frame. The comm is literally c/antifascism and people are like "noooo don't do antifascism that would be adventurinomoooo"
:screm-a: aaaaaaa
Thank you nazis should not feel safe all nazi shit should be forced into hiding through the knowledge that it will be destroyed otherwise.
They must not be allowed to normalise their presence in public. Memorials included. Do not give them an inch. Every inch that goes uncontested is an invitation to take another inch. Before you know it they've escalated hundreds of times with small enough little things to not get a true reprisal and they've become a far far harder beast to knock down.
I'm not advocating people do things that are high risk or will land them in prison, I'm simply stating that we should actively be encouraging people to take this kind of action because it's genuinely fucking easy to do.
We all need to show bigger teeth.
“Adventurism” is limited to stuff that will pull people out of organising for years (or indefinitely) for less value than that person would have been performing smaller acts in the same time frame.
You don't think cops and prosecutors would throw the book at someone defacing/destroying a "war memorial"? This is over property most people don't even know about, too; it's not equivalent to punching a Nazi out in public.
However you view adventurism, "make it something worth the trouble" applies.
Taking down fascist shit is not adventurism. Stop calling it adventurism. This expansion of the term to include mundane things that people will not get caught for is just a suppression of direct actions that are small enough for the individual to take independently.
You are going to get in far more trouble for breaking a fascist's face, you should still do it.
Adventurism is is characterized by "[having no] stable or serious principles, programme, tactics, organisation, and no roots among the masses." A person or small group defacing some fascist memorial is the definition of adventurism -- where are the serious principles or program, the organization, the tactics to translate that action into something meaningful? Where are the roots among the masses for that person and a few folks they hope they can trust?
And again, I'm not saying to never do anything without the sign off of a large vanguard party. I'm saying make it something worth the trouble. If someone's really certain they won't get caught defacing this shit, then it's no trouble, so go right ahead. But no one thinks they'll get caught, so if you're going to gamble, at least do it with something that matters more.
You are going to get in far more trouble for breaking a fascist’s face
Surprisingly, this isn't always the case. It depends on the jurisdiction, but the penalties for vandalism can jump pretty high if the damage is expensive enough or if you're damaging a memorial (I know at least one state makes the latter a felony). A sucker punch Richard Spencer-style is generally a misdemeanor. The sucker punch is probably going to play better for you in front of a jury, too.
Why doesn’t anybody simply smash them? Unwillingness? Fear of prosecution?
We've been trying. Unfortunately, defacing a Nazi monument is a hate crime in Canada. :agony-deep:
i wonder if it talks about the time when someone vandalized it and the police tried to frame it as a hate crime against brave SS volunteers until they got too much backlash
update: it does, and in the same article about the ukrainian cemetery in Oakville, ON, the "notable people buried there" section includes someone who is listed as notable for being a nazi collaborator and vocal antisemite
I am reminded of the time reddit had people defending some dude's grandpa as "just a soldier doing his job" when he was in the Waffen fucking SS.
There were multiple comments in that thread thanking him for his service :agony-deep:
Yeah that thread was fucking awful. Even my grim ass could only scroll so far before closing the web page.
The US and Canada evacuated the surviving Ukrainian Nazis after the war and used them as agents against the USSR. If you're wondering why Ukraine took a hard right turn in to open, proud Nazi shit, that's part of the anser.
There's only one Nazi memorial in the UK according to a map someone posted here, and it's for some Ukrainian of course. Yeah, I'm also shocked there's just one.
I can't find it right now, it was user created on Google or a similar service, so maybe someone else has the link.
This is the best I can do for now: https://forward.com/series/nazi-collaborator-monuments-around-the-world/
Can't believe there are OUN-B memorials in Chicago. Chicago Poles: what are you doing?
The French are the least cringe. Shocker. Finding the lack of monuments in Poland a bit surprising though.
Didn't Poland and Ukraine pretty much hate each other up until the invasion last year, and are only best buddies now because they both hate Russia more?
And don't forget Norway, one of the very few things that almost makes me feel a sense of national pride is that collaborators were given no quarter after the occupation ended. Quisling was the last person ever executed up here.
There's also monuments to the nazi collaborators of the Vlasov army in New York city.
The Novo-Diveevo Russian Orthodox convent and cemetery in Nanuet, New York.
Actually a little bit outside the city but hey, a little road trip never hurts anyone.
