The 80" anniversary of the freeing of Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners coincided with the day of mass return of Gaza's Palestinian refugees, from the central (supposed) safe zone of their concentration camp, back to the bomb-devastated north.
It was a heart-rending contrast. Elderly survivors of the concentration camps and world leaders, lighting candles in Poland, while the huge, tragic winding mass of Palestinians moved slowly like a never-ending river, up Gaza's coastal road on foot or in donkey carts, looking as if they belonged to another era in history, and not knowing what awaited them at the end of their journey.
But none of the official commentators dared to draw a link - nor point to the terrible irony that those responsible for what also amounts to a holocaust perpetrated against Gaza's Palestinian men, women and children over the past 17 months, are the descendants of the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. Yes, direct descendants of those who today say with one voice: "Never again!". If there were words of condemnation of the Zionist Netanyahu-led state of Israel's war on Gaza, these were not broadcast.
Their hypocrisy - yesterday and today
There were however, some learned professors who were interviewed about the WW2 Nazi regime, who reminded everyone that the Allies knew exactly what was going on in Germany during the march to fascism. And how they turned a blind eye - especially when the first victims of the fascists were executed and imprisoned - the Socialists, the Communists, the trade unionists...
In fact there was outright approval from the capitalists and the Allied governments, even if for them, despite the economic depression, such drastic repression of their own working class organisations was not judged to be necessary.
Of course, in contrast to workers elsewhere, the German Socialists and Communists had their own militias. The Communists had made two failed attempts at revolution. That was one reason why German capitalists summoned Hitler, choosing the radical solution of fascism to counter the deep crisis confronting them: first, to destroy any working class threat and, by reducing workers to quasi-slaves, increase the profits they could squeeze out of them. And second, to launch a new war - after their failure in 1914-18, to win foreign markets for German industrial production.
The fact that Hitler's fascism also came loaded with crack-pot racist ideas, like "superior Aryan racial purity" and the eradication of all those not judged to be pure enough (Jews and Gypsies, physically or mentally disabled, sexually diverse...) didn't bother them. Indeed, this discrimination to the death was officially endorsed.
British governments are culpable
Today, calling Gaza a huge "concentration camp" and thus de facto comparing Zionist policy to that of the Nazis might seem to be a "comparison too far". But it's not possible to ignore the reality that is Gaza - nor its history. The coverage of this war, even on the pro-Zionist BBC exposed its horror.
However, the support of Starmer (and Sunak before him) for the Zionist state and its imprisonment of Palestinians should come as no surprise. It is rooted in historic and brutal British colonial policies.
In fact it was not the Nazis who came up with the idea of herding people into concentration camps, but former British governments. They scored a "first" when it came to incarcerating men, women and children, under such conditions, using starvation and torture to punish those who dared to rise up against their rule: in 1899-1902 during South Africa's Boer War, and again in 1952-1960 in Kenya, during the Mau-Mau rebellion. And what were the "H-Blocks" in Northern Ireland if not concentration camps?
Today the electoral rise of the far-right, which includes the followers of Trump, if not Trump himself, Farage and Reform, the Alternative for Germany and Marine Le Pen's party in France, is having the effect of normalising racism and prejudice against immigrants. The threat of fascism is said to be looming again. Auschwitz survivors say that "never again" seems now to be just a pipe-dream. Among governments in the rich countries there is a pathological "nimbyism" (Trump's version being the worst), which says that national borders must be reinforced and immigrants kept out.
However, today's world is nothing like the world in 1939. It's not just that today's financialised capitalism is reaching surreal limits (with "shit"coin galore!), but today the planet itself is in danger. The future of humanity depends on a totally new internationally-planned economy based on production for need and the end, for good, of capitalism, the nation state and nationality, which would finally end all forms of racism. It's the only way to truly ensure "Never again".