What is it about?
This article looks at the extent to which the Holocaust shaped British antifascism in the 1960s. It reveals that the 1960s was an important transitional period in which antifascists increasingly used Holocaust consciousness to link to wider anti-racist campaigns. However, even as the Holocaust influenced anti-racist legislation, its 'lessons' became a source of sometimes bitter dispute between Jewish groups that could not agree on its contemporary relevance or the wisdom of invoking it against fascism.
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Why is it important?
This article demonstrates that the Holocaust played a more important role in 1960s' antifascism than has so far been recognised. It adds simultaneously to our understanding of the extent to which the genocide had political capital in the 1960s, and to histories of British antifascism, including its developing links to wider anti-racism.
Perspectives
I hope this article adds to readers' understandings of the motivations for antifascism both in terms of movements' rhetoric and campaign strategies and, through the oral histories it employs, personal motivations for resisting fascism.
Joshua Cohen
University of Leicester
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: ‘Somehow Getting Their Own Back on Hitler’: British Antifascism and the Holocaust, 1960–1967, Fascism, December 2020, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/22116257-09010004.
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