The Socialist Health Association will this year be marking Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January) with an initiative to publicise our labour movement history.
Up to 17 million people were murdered by the Nazi regime and collaborator governments between 1933 and 1945. They were Jews and also disabled people, Roma, Sinti, Gays not to mention socialists, communists and trade union activists.
The Socialist Health Association, at that time called the Socialist Medical Association, was fiercely opposed to fascism, having sent volunteers to Spain to oppose Franco’s coup against the elected republican government. We currently know relatively little of the SMA’s opposition to the Nazis and their horrific holocaust. We believe the SMA campaigned for the British government to admit Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and we know it is important to understand and publicise this history more widely.
The SHA Officers have agreed to commission a pamphlet from our archives (in the University of Hull) to document our response in the context of the broader labour movement opposition to this appalling crime against humanity. This is important as genocides have continued to take place from the end of the Second World War until today, including that currently being perpetrated in Palestine.
If you are able to contribute to this research please contact us by replying to this email admin@sochealth.co.uk
Mark Ladbrooke, Judith Kramer and Esther Giles, our SHA Officers