Antifascist Film Day at Bradford's 1 in 12

Click image for full-size

To commemorate the liberation of the survivors of Auschwitz, a day of antifascist films is being held at Bradford 1 in 12 Club on Saturday 23rd January. Drop in for one film or come and watch them all. There’ll be fab food throughout the day, as well as the Leeds Anarchist Black Cross bookstall.

Entry is free of charge, but donations are welcome, and any money made will go to support antifascist prisoners. Doors open at 12 Noon.

Film Times:

• 12.30pm: Hitler – The rise of Evil – Robert Carlisle stars as history’s biggest bastard.
• 4.30pm: The Pianist - Adrian Brody stars in an epic story of survival in Nazi-occupied Poland.
• 7.30pm: The 43 Group – The inspiring story of the Jewish ex-servicemen and women who smashed Mosely’s fascists off the streets of post-World War 2 Britain.
• 8.00pm: Edelweiss Pirates – The true story of young antifascists taking on the Nazis in war-time Cologne.

NO PASARAN!

Antifa

Standing up to fascism

The Spiro Ark, Jewish Cultural
and Educational Trust, presents

Standing up to fascism

A celebration of the 43 Group, who fought fascism
in postwar Britain, and those who fight fascism today

The 43 Group consisted of Jewish ex-servicemen and women who stood shoulder to shoulder with non-Jews to halt Oswald Mosley’s attempt to revitalise a fascist movement in postwar Britain.

Between 1946 and 1952 they combined intelligence gathering and street fighting to drive Mosley’s thugs from our streets. In 1948 many supporters of the 43 Group volunteered for MAHAL.

A decade later old 43 Group members and a younger generation formed a new group that fought fascism using similar tactics. The 1962 Committee, better known as the 62 Group, carried on an intelligence-led battle against the remnants of Mosley’s Union Movement, the original British National Party, Colin Jordan’s National Socialist Movement and the emerging National Front.

The internationally famous Searchlight magazine and its campaigning, research and educational arms arose out of this struggle.

And today’s Jewish Community Security Trust grew from these roots, learning from those who had led in earlier years.

Today the largest ever anti-fascist campaign in Britain, HOPE not hate, works together with many of these veterans to defeat the British National Party and defend democracy.

You can meet the veterans of the 43 and 62 Groups and MAHAL, and today’s activists at an evening event on Sunday 15 February. The programme includes short talks, a film about the 43 Group narrated by the late Harold Pinter, an exhibition of unique material, a bookstall with most items free and refreshments.

Bring your family and especially the next generation to an event that will help them hold up their heads in today’s troubled times.

Sunday 15 February 2009, at 6.30 for 7pm
At Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue,
Norrice Lea, London N2 0RE
Nearest Tube East Finchley
(Northern Line Barnet branch). Bus route 102.

The fight goes on

Entrance £10, concessions for senior citizens, children and students.

The Spiro Ark, 25-26 Enford Street, London W1H 1DW
Tel 020 7723 9991, email education@spiroark.org, www.spiroark.org.

Vidal Sassoon: Anti-fascist warrior-hairdresser

Vidal Sassoon, the hairdresser, has recounted his early days as a foot-soldier for an underground anti-fascist group dedicated to wiping out Sir Oswald Mosley's far-Right movement after the Second World War.

Sassoon was a teenage member of the 43 Group, an organisation formed in 1946 by Jewish ex-servicemen who returned from the frontline only to discover that Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists and an admirer of Adolf Hitler, was spreading his message of hatred on the streets of London.

The story is told in a BBC Radio 4 documentary, Archive Hour: A Rage In Dalston, to be broadcast on Saturday, April 19, at 8pm.

Mosley and his wife, Diana, one of the Mitford sisters, were interned during the war and released in 1943. His supporters continued to regard him as a hero and urged him to resume his political activities after the war, holding a series of public meetings in his name at which they spouted anti-Semitic propaganda.

The 43 Group was dedicated to breaking up meetings of these "Mosleyites", through violent means if necessary, and a 17-year-old Sassoon was an enthusiastic street-fighter.

The hairdresser, now 80, grew up in the East End and was a trainee at a London salon when he joined up. He told the programme how he once turned up to work with a black eye after a night of fighting.

"I'll never forget one morning I walked in and I had a hell of a bruise - it had been a difficult night the night before - and a client said to me, 'Good God, Vidal, what happened to your face?' And I said, 'Oh, nothing, madam, I just fell over a hairpin'."

Sassoon said of his fellow 43 Group members: "I was 17, these were all ex-servicemen at least five or six years older than me, and many of them won medals. I was a private."

Armed with knives and razor blades, the group fought pitched battles with Mosley supporters - many confrontations taking place in Ridley Road, Hackney, east London, which had a large Jewish community. The group disbanded in 1950.

Telegraph