Bristol Radical History & Bristol Antifa join us for an astounding a talk by author Morris Beckman about the hidden history of how British Jewish ex-servicemen fought back against those trying to reconstitute fascist groups after WWII. The '43 Group' took it's name from the number of people at the founding meeting, one of whom was Morris Beckman (who had served on a Flower class corvette during the war). The movement grew to include many hundreds of men and women, including a 17-year-old […]
A couple of years ago, at a gathering of the International Brigade Memorial Trust, Professor Paul Preston, describing George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, said: 'It is not a bad book but the trouble is, it is the only book many people read on the Spanish Civil War' or words to that effect. Pro. Preston suggested that 'Homage to Catalonia' was a book written about the Spanish War from the narrow perspective of someone who had only spent six or seven months involved in the conflict on a quiet […]
Bristol Indymedia & Bristol Radical History are pleased to welcome Steve Tilzey, one of the authors of No Retreat - a powerful account of their fight-back against far-right Nazis and racists on the streets of the UK from the 70s though to the 90s. With the BNP gaining two seats in the European elections, the authors deliver constant and powerful message that fascism thrives when the working-class is ignored and betrayed - and we ignore it’s rise at our peril. Colin Thomas will also be […]
Namibia: Genocide And The Second Reich "The ghosts of the Namibian genocide have been reawakened. They return to haunt liberal post-war Germany, and in doing so they force Germany to wake-up to a very uncomfortable fact that the dark racial theories that helped inspire the Nazis run much deeper into German and European history than most people want to acknowledge." The powerful documentary by David Olusoga (BBC) is the story of Germany's forgotten genocide. It takes a sensitive and […]
Berlin, 1939. A young, brilliant trumpet player, Hieronymus, is arrested in a Paris café. The star musician was never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black. Fifty years later, Sidney Griffiths, the only witness that day, still refuses to speak of what he saw. When Chip Jones, his friend and fellow band member, comes to visit, recounting the discovery of a strange letter, Sid begins a slow journey towards redemption. From the smokey bars of pre-war […]
This is a personal account of one man’s experiences in Germany from 1933 until the end of the war in 1945. As a communist, arrested by the Gestapo, tortured and sent to a concentration camp, he describes his existence of ten years as a prisoner of the nazi regime. He gives an insight into how the system operated, mainly by brutality and betrayal. The courage and bravery of people who opposed the fascists is conveyed clearly in this account and it is an important record of ordinary working men […]
The 43 Group is a riveting account of militant anti-fascist resistance in the UK in the years following the second world war. In existence for only 5 years, the group were mainly active in London where Mosley's British Union of Fascists were busiest in their attempts to win favour amongst the white working class. Initially comprised of ex-servicemen, the Group were appalled at the xenophobic and anti-Semitic ranting of the Mosleyites, who would meet on London's street corners and berate […]
