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What I’ve Been Up To Lately
- mazel tov to @bluenatic and @grandstreet on the birth of their baby girl 2 weeks ago
- RT @JTownCrier: Tropper? Kolko? Margulies? Balkany? Dwek? Rubashkin? NO. Moetzes Gedolei Torah condemn AVI WEISS as more offensive. 2 weeks ago
- Rorschach from Watchmen is the new Freddy Krueger http://bit.ly/7s61Cj 2 weeks ago
- More updates...
Save the squat at Topf & Söhne!
Entrance to the Topf & Söhne squat in Erfurt, Germany. More photos here.
In 2001, a group of antifascist activists connected to the anti-German movement occupied the long-abandoned Topf & Söhne factory grounds in Erfurt, Germany, where the crematoriums for the Nazi death camps were manufactured.
From the decaying shambles they forged a dozen apartments, a free kitchen, studio & rehearsal spaces, a performance space, a free store, and a museum documenting the crimes that occurred there. They also succeeded in building a community which has become a locus for organized resistance to resurgent fascism in Germany’s east, which is an ever-present and ever-growing threat.
Next Wednesday, January 21, local authorities intend to evict the Topf & Söhne squatters. A new owner has acquired the property and plans to demolish the site — erasing both historical evidence of the Nazi atrocities and an important community resource — so that the land can be redeveloped into a commercial complex.
Only one structure, the administrative offices, will remain as an official historical site — a concession earned through the continued agitation of the squatters and allied local citizens to preserve the entirety of the site.
The squatters themselves, who have struggled nobly, will be left without a home. They nonetheless intend to stick it out, awaiting the inevitable showdown.
Stand up to defend community, historical memory, and grassroots resistance! Please contact your local German consular and ask them to intervene to stop the eviction and demolition of Topf & Söhne.
Tags: anti-german, antifa, antifascist, germany, shoah, squat, squatters
It is hard for me to be sympathetic to “anarchists” affiliated with the “anti-german” movement. This is a youth movement that categorically rejects their /own/ German identity while exploiting their own society’s relatively lax attitude towards vagrant youth. The anti-Deutsch predicate all their direct action on a rejection of their national identity, as if this gives them some sort of moral higher ground. This is troublesome. A town like Erfurt is in dire need of commercial development. Germany is a beacon of light when it comes to commemorating Jewish victims of the Nazi onslaught, and anti-Deutsch kids are largely just middle class German kids looking for meaning.
I say, “Get a job, sir!”
Most of them have jobs. Good jobs. One of the kids I met there was a software engineer. This is purely ideological.
great to put the focus on something other than Gaza.
I don’t know if commercial development is fascism– sounds more like typical capitalism, which subsumes all meaning in pointless consumerism. I honor the work of the squatters. I do think they should still be proud of who they are as Germans– there were Germans who opposed Nazism and Communism, and a thousand other ways that the world owes Germans a debt, in spite of the other millions of ways the world um, doesn’t. They are reclaiming a positive sense of meaning and owning their own history.
they don’t oppose communism. they’re an outgrowth of the communist movement. and the opposition to fascism isn’t regarding the real estate developer, it’s about the neo-nazis who prowl the streets of erfurt at night and their patrons running for public office.
I can sympathize with the need to maintain this site of historic value. I do not, sympathize, however, with the activists abducting Bernd, the grumpy loaf of bread: http://de.news.yahoo.com/26/20.....6c7de.html