“Never again” is the conclusion and obligation that the opponents of fascism drew 79 years ago from the experience that the Shoah was possible and that its repetition remains possible. The day of the liberation of Auschwitz, January 27, became a day of remembrance for the victims of the antisemitic mass extermination. Today, on this day of remembrance, we must not only think of the past, because it is not without reason that the call “Never again” can be heard quite often these days. Antisemitic incitement and violence have never ceased after 1945, and have become more visible and, unfortunately, more commonplace, especially in the last few months. The danger doesn’t just come from jackbooted neo-Nazis (though those haven’t become any less dangerous), it has long been rampant in all parts of society, from middle-class couples with “Querdenken” sympathies to representatives of so-called conservative values to the all-too-powerful owner of an increasingly veXing social media platform who spreads antisemitic conspiracy narratives. And it didn’t take the revelations about the secret far-right conference in Potsdam to realize that fascism is on the rise again worldwide.

Antisemitism is not a remnant of “barbaric” prehistoric times, even if it draws on very old prejudices. On the contrary, antisemitism is something very modern: it is an attempt to find specific culprits for one’s own suffering under the capitalist-patriarchal-racist society, culprits whom one then only has to eliminate in order to make everything right again. This is why antisemitism cannot be countered with arguments alone, but only with active and persistent anti-fascist resistance – against conspiracist ideologies about “globalist elites”, against right-wing bigots of all kinds, against the social conditions that give rise to all of this in the first place. Antisemitism concerns us all; we are obliged to make the demand “Never again” an irrefutable reality.