Kubijovyč was an infamous Nazi collaborator, a founder of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS as head of the [Axis’s] Ukrainian Central Committee. In a 2012 paper in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Rudling, now a historian at Lund University in Sweden, describes Kubijovyč as “an enthusiastic proponent of ethnic cleansing” who wanted to establish an independent Ukraine without Jews or Poles.

“The formation of the Galician-Ukrainian division within the framework of the SS, is for us not only a distinction, but our responsibility that we will continue to [support] and maintain this active decision, in cooperation with the German state organizations, until the victorious end of the war,” Kubijovyč said on April 28, 1943, the day the division was formally established.

“This historic day was made possible by the conditions to create a worthy opportunity for the Ukrainians of Galicia, to fight arm in arm with the heroic German soldiers of the Army and the Waffen-SS against Bolshevism, your and our deadly enemy. We thank you from our heart. Of course we ought to thank the Great Führer of the united Europe for recognizing our participation in the war, that he approved your initiative and agreed to the creation of the Galicia division.”

After the war, Kubijovyč edited the first two volumes of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, which downplayed the Galicia Division’s [Axis] ties. His family’s endowment was specifically for the purpose of completing the encyclopedia’s translation into English.

When Rudling and fellow historian Tyrik Cyril Amar questioned the propriety of Kubijovyč’s endowment in a 2015 article for History News Network, CIUS director Volodymyr Kravchenko accused them of “assaulting the dead” and “mudslinging … to conduct an information war in which the opponent is not convinced but destroyed.”

Kubijovyč was also pictured with Peter Savaryn on the cover of the 1976 book, The Politics of Multiculturalism by Manoly Lupul. The photo is of the signing of a contract between the CIUS and the Shevchenko Scientific Society of Europe to collaborate on the Encyclopedia of Ukraine.

Left image: Peter Savaryn (left standing) and Volodymyr Kubijovyč (center sitting) pictured here at the 1976 contract signing between the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and Shevchenko Scientific Society of Europe to collaborate on the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Right image: Volodymyr Kubijovyč (circled in red) gives a [Fascist] salute at the 14th Waffen-SS recruitment ceremony in 1943.

Events that happened today (October 10):

1895: Wolfram Karl Ludwig Moritz Hermann Freiherr von Richthofen, Axis field marshal, was born.
1935: A parafascist coup d’état terminated Greece’s Second Hellenic Republic and replaced it with the Kingdom of Greece (again).
1938: Abiding by the Munich Agreement, Czechoslovakia completed its withdrawal from the Sudetenland, now property of the Third Reich.
1942: Arnold Majewski, Axis cavalry officer, died immediately after receiving a bullet from a Soviet sniper.
1957: Karl August Genzken, Axis physician who committed numerous atrocities against concentration camp prisoners, was kind enough to drop dead.

The broadcaster quoted an unnamed senior official as saying that Tel Aviv has decided to continue carrying out attacks on Gaza “forcefully and on a large scale, even at the expense of harming the [Jewish] prisoners being held in Gaza.”

“We have indications that Iran has pushed Hamas to take action and is pushing Hezbollah to prepare for battle,” the official said, adding that “if there is accurate intelligence information about the location of the […] prisoners, of course [our neocolony] will refrain from attacking this site, but as long as there is no such information, all Hamas targets will be attacked.”

I was right.

First they came for the Palestinians, and then they’ll come for Jews.

1948: Creation & Catastrophe is an important documentary, but I must admit feeling nauseated watching it, because the way that these criminals could treat other human beings like filth, and bring such immense shame to the Jewish people when they should have known better, nearly overwhelmed me.

I went walking by the wall — not from the main road but from the orchards. The bakery had a window from my side. The [Zionists] were inside the bakery. The [Arab] women were sitting on the ground and each one had her arms over her head like this. They [the Zionists] were telling the baker, his name was Hamed, “Throw your son into the oven. Throw your son into the oven.”

He replied, “I will not throw my son.” He told him “Grill him!” They hit Haj Hamed on his head and took the child and threw him into the oven. I saw this scene… I saw this scene and couldn’t find any more strength. Then they took the father and threw him after the son. They told him “follow your son.” I sat down and thought to myself, ”they are going to catch me,” so I started running.

[…]

Suddenly I saw those masses of people going through the checkpoints, which we were commanded to man. And they were searched — searched for valuables. That reminded me very much of the time when I was a child. We’re starting to do the same thing [that other] people have done to us as Jews.

We demand [that] the United States government and the international community end their complicity in the ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people, a people living under [neo]colonial occupation and denied their right to return home for over 75 years. Palestinians in exile and diaspora have been illegally denied their homeland, including the over 70% of Palestinians in Gaza who are themselves Palestinian refugees. The Palestinian people possess an inherent right to resist occupation, a fundamental right that must be upheld and defended.

We further demand [that] the United States government immediately end all aid and support to the […] occupation régime. Every year, our tax dollars fund $4 billion in weaponry to arm the occupier against the Palestinian people. This complicity in war crimes and genocide must immediately end.

We further demand that the United States cease its efforts to impose “normalization” projects on the Arab region through the so-called “Abraham Accords” and other attempts to legitimize Zionist colonialism in the region through bribery and illegitimate imperialist sanctions. The Palestinian resistance has exposed the bankruptcy of this project, and it must come to an end once and for all.

The United States has been part and parcel of the blockade of Gaza for over 16 years, imposing a siege on the Palestinian people that was meant to kill the resistance. However, the resistance has not been killed — it has flourished despite the brutality of the open-air prison imposed upon the Palestinians of Gaza. We demand not only the end of the crimes, but reparations to the Palestinian people for the reconstruction and development of Gaza and all of Palestine.

As Mahtowin Munro, co-leader of UAINE, and other speakers at the Common explained, Indigenous Peoples Day honors the resilience, survival, cultures, histories and resistance of Indigenous peoples. Munro also spoke about the need for worldwide solidary with Indigenous nations in their resistance to ongoing genocide and colonialism, including the struggle of the Palestinian people for liberation from the Zionist régime [in the Middle East].

Munro stressed that the only ultimate solution to the ongoing human and environmental catastrophes caused by capitalism and settler-colonialism is the centering of Indigenous knowledge and the full return of stolen lands and sovereignty to Indigenous nations.

[…]

A large delegation from the Indigenous Students Organization at Tufts University and Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine, wearing keffiyehs and waving a Palestinian flag, helped lead the march through Boston’s downtown shopping district. Thousands of tourists and traffic came to a halt, some cheering and honking for the marchers’ demand: “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go!”

The Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of Kenya expresses deep concern regarding the proposed deal between the USA and the Kenyan government. It is with great displeasure and utmost frustration that we are forced to witness Kenya allowing itself to be recruited into the [neo]imperialist activities of the United States, the Core Group and the United Nations.

The reported plan of involving Kenyan police to carry out actions on behalf of the USA government in Haiti raises serious ethical and moral questions. In its efforts to endear itself to the systems of power that underpin Western hegemony, Kenya is providing legitimacy for a long-standing series of interventions into Haiti that seek to undermine the aspirations of the Haitian people.

Kenya’s motive to send a small contingent of police officers to Haiti is not to solve the so-called problems of insecurity that beset Haiti. Just as it has been done in the past through recruitment of Caribbean and African countries, it is [meant] to prevent accusations of racism and the oppressive grip of Western foreign powers by having Third World nations give their support for the exploitation of Haiti.

Es un crimen que se puedan lanzar bombas incendiarias contra la embajada cubana. Es una admisión de la participación oficial de Estados Unidos en este crimen que nadie haya sido capturado. Pero no es ni mucho menos el peor crimen que el imperialismo yanqui ha cometido contra el pueblo cubano. Bloquear la economía cubana, calumniar a Cuba de “terrorista” es un crimen mucho peor.

El año pasado, cuando la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas votó sobre el levantamiento del bloqueo a Cuba, el levantamiento del bloqueo ganó, por 185 a 2. Sólo [una neocolonia] se unió a Estados Unidos para votar en contra de Cuba. Dos Estados canallas. Y los gobiernos de los otros 185 países están convencidos de que es un disparate llamar a Cuba un estado terrorista.

Así que si el ataque a la embajada cubana ha llamado más la atención sobre la flagrante mentira utilizada para hacer sufrir al pueblo cubano, utilicemos esa atención para movilizarnos y conseguir que Cuba sea eliminada de la lista. Ya existe una petición para exigir precisamente eso. Ya ha recorrido más de un tercio del camino hacia el objetivo de un millón de firmas.

From a Facebook post:

Yesh Gvul is a pro‐peace group of […] soldiers and veterans who refused to serve the […] occupation of the Palestinian territories. This is a statement they just published to the [neocolony’s] public, reminding citizens that there is no military solution to the […] conflict, and that the only solution is a negotiated just peace.

[…]

You can support Yesh Gvul and similar peace and anti‐violence groups in [the neocolony] through this link: https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/35fs8e2jo8er

Your immediate donations are critical to prevent escalation of the war in Gaza.

“There is no military solution — no to war, no to violence!

Now more than ever, it is important for us in the Yesh Gvul Movement to remember and remind others: there is no military solution to the circle of hate. Only the end of the occupation of the Palestinian territories, Palestinian independence, and a permanent political [peace] agreement will secure a peaceful future for Palestinians and [others].

Especially now, when the cannons are roaring: we cannot become involved in an all‐out war or the re‐occupation of the Gaza strip. It is time to end the occupation, pursue a political agreement, and get [neocolonialism] out of the Palestinian territories.”

It’s clear that immediate funds are critically needed to help groups on the ground. Your donations can help in amplifying the voices, messages, and actions of war resisters, in preventing escalation of violence, and in using this moment to build the movement for a just peace. You can donate through this link: https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/35fs8e2jo8er

I donated $1 today.

In Fascist Italy, “Columbus Day” was created by Mariano Lucca, a failed politician turned reporter who interviewed Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. It was likely intended to dismiss and normalize the well known atrocities that Columbus committed. Its introduction to Imperial America, however, was more complex:

To truly understand Columbus Day, one must learn about an important name in Italian‐American history: Generoso Pope.

In 1937, following the popularity and success of newspaper magnate Generoso Pope’s New York City Columbus Day Parade, President Franklin Roosevelt declared October 12th a national holiday commemorating Christopher Columbus’s “discovery of North America.” Although the Italian‐born, Brasilia‐affiliated explorer sailing under the Spanish Empire failed to ever set foot on the North American continent, Italians in America had accrued a kinship to the famed navigator.

[During the 1920s and ’30s, the Fascist Party in Italy courted Italian immigrant communities in the U.S., which they considered “colonies” of the [Fascist] state. The Fascists and their sympathizers helped organize the first U.S. Fascist convention in Philadelphia and lobbied to make Columbus day a national holiday. (Source.)]

While Pope’s Columbus Day Parade (starting in 1929) was not the first celebration of Columbus that New York had seen, his would quickly become a tradition there. While the establishment of a formal Columbus Day may seem to be an outwardly straightforward process, a deeper dive into Pope’s involvement with powerful political players reveals a profound meaning of the holiday that extends beyond the mere celebration of Columbus himself.

During the Depression Era, Pope was considered one of the most impactful political power brokers within the Democratic Party, and he would eventually be appointed the head of the Italian division within the Democratic National Committee by President Roosevelt himself. Pope owned seven Italian‐language newspapers as well as the radio station WHOM, and his flagship paper, Il Progresso Italo‐Americano, was the largest Italian‐language newspaper in the United States with a circulation nearing 200,000 copies (he had, notably, purchased the paper from a lesser‐known owner for the modern‐day equivalent of $261 million).

The source of Pope’s political power resided in his influence over the Italian‐American voting bloc through his newspaper empire, as Italian immigrants depended on his papers for a sense of community and for news written in their native language. Galvanizing the Italian voting bloc, Pope played a pivotal role in securing elections for various New York City politicians and judges.

But Pope also played a significant role in world affairs: He was considered one of the most influential fascist propagandists in the U.S. for Mussolini’s […] régime. To provide a few significant examples of his fascist status, Pope was a member of the fascist Lictor Federation and its predecessor, the Fascist League of North America (FLNA); he employed multiple known fascists; he was photographed performing a fascist salute in Rome in 1937; lastly, he was awarded the honorary title of Grand Officer of the Crown of Italy for his service to fascism in America.

Following the FLNA’s disbandment in 1929, the type of propaganda that was perpetuated within the U.S. began to shift from the domain of politics to that of culture, bolstering Italian nationalistic sentiments in immigrants and second‐generation Italian‐Americans to create, as one history of early 20th century Italian immigrants put it, a people “spiritually tied to fascist Italy by linguistic [and cultural] bonds.”

Following his first successful Columbus Day parade, Pope met in March 1930 with FDR, then governor of New York, to discuss the potential for a state holiday in celebration of Columbus. Although the idea was received favorably, Pope lacked the necessary political capital to get it enacted.

Four years later, following Roosevelt’s 1932 presidential victory, the fascist newspaper kingpin petitioned the president to reconsider his previous stance on the Columbus Day holiday. In a nod to Pope’s prolonged help to FDR through consistently favorable coverage in his papers, as well as to acknowledge recent race‐based hate crimes committed against Italian immigrants and a sign of appreciation for their turnout in the recent election, President Roosevelt declared October 12th a national holiday. With the establishment of Columbus Day, Generoso Pope had succeeded in solidifying Christopher Columbus’s place in U.S. history and within the minds of Italian‐Americans as a near‐mythic entity.

Columbus Day and Pope’s Columbus Day Parade were both founded with fascist ideologies in mind, which was clear and ever‐present at the New York City parades prior to World War II. At the 1936 parade, according to one account, prominent politicians were implored by anti‐fascists not to attend, as “local fascist papers have announced that uniformed Fascisti will participate in military formation.”

In 1937, when FDR declared Columbus Day a federal holiday, spectators at the subsequent parade allegedly cheered loudly and raised their hands in the infamous fascist salute when Italy’s fascist anthem, “Giovinezza,” was played. The next year’s parade, the New York Times reported, saw spectators shouting “Viva Mussolini” along the route.

When Mussolini’s Italy declared war on the U.S. on December 11, 1941, hundreds of known fascist sympathizers were quickly incarcerated by the government for their enemy activities. Fortunately for Pope, in the weeks prior to the war’s declaration, he had begun distancing himself from Mussolini’s fascism and even publicly declared “fealty to the U.S.” in an October 1940 New York Times article.

Though many of these incarcerated fascists were his known associates, Pope continued advising FDR and the Democratic National Committee regarding Italian‐Americans, particularly during the 1944 election. [Among other things, Generoso Pope also ordered mobster Carmine Galante to murder the antifascist journalist Carlo Tresca in 1943. Pope’s son, Generoso Jr., was a CIA officer who founded the National Enquirer with loans from Frank Costello and Roy Cohn, and ran the paper like an intelligence‐gathering network where two subjects were off limits: the CIA and the mob.]

(Emphasis added.)

In 1925, Benito Mussolini declared Columbus Day a national holiday in Fascist Italy:

(Source.)

Furthermore, Fascist Italy used a 1927 monument dedication in Richmond to spread propaganda and declared fake news about atrocities it was actively committing:

(Source. Footnote. On a related note, I read that a ‘Mussolini groupie’ donated the statue in San Francisco near Coit Tower.)

As early as 1936, the antifascist Italian‐American labor newspaper editor Girolamo Valenti warned that Columbus Day celebrations was furthering the cause of fascism. Additionally:

Italian‐Americans in RI commemorated the [WWI] Battle of the Piave River, the March on Rome, the Birth of [Ancient] Rome, and Columbus Day with fascist salutes, with a (controversial) 1937 Columbus Day parade in West Warwick even featuring Black Shirts marching in formation.

(Source.)

Events that happened today (October 9):

1907: Horst Wessel, SA officer and musician, was unfortunately born.
1908: Werner von Haeften, Axis lieutenant who failed to oust the Third Reich’s Chancellor, was delivered to the world.
1934: An Ustashe murdered King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and Louis Barthou, Foreign Minister of France, in Marseille.
1937: Somebody massacred nine Catholic priests in Zhengding, China who were protecting the local population from the advancing Imperial army.
1941: The Kingdom of Romania deported Jews to Transnistria. (Hence this day is known as the National Day of Commemorating the Holocaust in Romania.)
1945: Gottlieb Hering, SS commander involved in Action T4, took his long overdue dirtnap.
1947: Yukio Sakurauchi, Imperial Minister of Commerce and Industry, expired.
1959: Shirō Ishii, the Axis director of Unit 731 and later contributor to the U.S. biological warfare program, did a nice thing for once and dropped dead.
1974: Oskar Schindler, a moderate fascist who famously saved (but occasionally abused) hundreds of Jewish workers, perished.
1976: Walter Warlimont, Axis staff officer, died.
1988: Felix Wankel, Axis engineer and SS member, departed from the world.

Denmark also risks becoming a bombing target for the many enemies the U.S. makes during the many military operations and wars it has a tradition of waging.

Norway has entered into a base agreement with the U.S., which means that the U.S. will have unrestricted access to four land areas in Norway, where it can set up barracks, hangars, and port areas as it wishes. There will be no possibility of any kind of control of these areas by the Norwegian authorities. The details of the agreement were agreed to in the deepest secrecy and the Norwegian population was never asked if they wanted the bases.

The same secrecy is now happening here in Denmark. Denmark will, with a bilateral base agreement with the U.S., cede sovereignty to the U.S. — and this will happen without the population being asked.

The Danish Communist Party strongly opposes such a bilateral agreement and calls for the broadest possible struggle against it.

In Hamburg, because of the nationwide celebration of the “Day of German Unity,” a larger demonstration of the peace movement took place. More than 700 people took part in today’s rally in Hamburg in front of the Altona train station followed by a march to the fish market in pouring rain.

In Munich, 2,500 people gathered in sunny weather on Marienplatz under the slogan “Mir reicht’s – Macht Frieden” (“I’ve had enough – make peace”). On Odeonsplatz, more than 300 peace activists said, “It’s high time for peace politics! Organize resistance against militarism and war!”

More than 300 people responded to the call of the Rhine-Ruhr Peace Assembly for a protest demonstration against the air force command center in Kalkar/Uedem.

In Berlin, more than 800 people marched from the Foreign Ministry to the Finance Ministry, then to the Social Democratic Party (SPD) headquarters, demanding disarmament — and no further arms deliveries to Ukraine.

In Düsseldorf, more than 300 rally participants called for “winning the peace, not the war.” Other events took place in Saarbrücken, Schorndorf and Heidelberg.

(Emphasis original.)