Commenting on the brutalization of political dialogue and the current strategies of extreme right-wing parties in Europe, Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee said:
"Auschwitz survivors are shocked and appalled at the increasing brutalization in personal relations and political dialogue that are becoming more and more evident in many societies throughout Europe.
Politicians are being branded as ‘traitors’ and insulted. In numerous European countries imitation gallows bearing photos of politicians or symbols of entire governments are being used as trappings at demonstrations, probably with the intention that the public will be incited to ‘help hang the traitors’. The varnish of democratic socialisation and the influence of basic Christian values are rapidly vanishing and giving way to extreme right-wing hatred.
Over the past few days in Poland, two representatives of public life managed to distinguish themselves: one of them smugly proposed that there was accommodation for migrants in the barracks of Auschwitz. The other cynically recommended that migrants could be chipped or tattooed for registration purposes – all jokes of course. But such jokes make the blood run cold, and it is more than welcome that the director of the Auschwitz Memorial, Piotr Cywinski, clearly expressed his outrage and vehemently rebuked the monstrous behaviour of the two ‘jokers’.
Especially in the current situation in Europe, where extreme right-wing anti-European and antidemocratic parties are increasingly gaining ground with various prospects of huge election victories, the Holocaust survivors expect similar decisive opposition from all democratic parties, plus a responsible united stand against extreme far-right parties who are trying to drive democracy into a downward spiral, often by infiltrating protest movements. All too often it seems to the survivors that people among the democratic parties still haven’t comprehended the scope of the threat to democracies in Europe, and that further delays could prove fatal."
