Socialist Response Podcast

Our Failing Public Schools: A Critique on Capitalism 

Today, April 22 2022, marks the 77th commemoration of Jasenovac's liberation from fascist forces by Communist Yugoslav Partisan forces.

Pictured is prominent Jasenovac victim: Nada Dimic, a Serbian Partisanka who was brutally tortured and killed by the Ustasha at age 18. 

This episode discusses Egon Berger and his book 44 Months in Jasenovac, which is the only known book in English by a Jasenovac survivor. It also features Partisanka, teenager and Jasenovac victim Nada Dimic as well as Diana Budisavljevic who was responsible for the largest humanitarian action in WWII Europe undertaken by a civilian. It also features Ivo Goran Kovacic's iconic poem the Jama of the Pit of which a tiny excerpt of it is featured at the Jasenovac memorial site. It also briefly discusses Catholic Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac and the cultural genocide he inflicted upon orphans. After the war, Stepinac was later made into a Cardinal. Today, many ultranationalist Croats want him to become a Saint. His canonization has been currently stalled by Pope Francis. I plan on doing an entire episode on the myth of Stepinac's humanitarian actions and how it was a founding myth of the new Croatian state that was put in motion by the Catholic Church. 

SMRT FAZSIMU- DEATH TO FASCISM 

This week’s episode is based on a single source; Jelena Batinic’s academic book entitled Women and Yugoslav Partisans: A history of WWII Resistance which looks at the role of female Partisan fighters or Partisanka. By the end of the war, two million women were involved in the Partisan movement. The vast majority were involved in rear support and in medical capacities. While, 100 000 fought in combat- a level of female military involvement that is unprecedented and unrepeated in that region. In this episode, I provide some necessary background information on WWII in the Balkans. I of course dispel many Western myths that were no doubt created and perpetuated by Western imperialists. I will also discuss the early problems of the CPY (Communist Party of Yugoslavia); their issues with enlisting the peasant masses and how they overcame that. I also discuss the AFW- antifascist front of women, the tradition of female soldiers and of course the Partisanka; what they had to endure, the harshness of war coupled with being a woman, and what it meant for them to fight as a Partisan fighter. 

In my opinion Kata Pejnovic is just as much a Partisanka as Lepa Radic or Nada Dimic as she was a leader, an organizer and most importantly a (self)-liberator. I also want to add that the Partisan successes would not have existed without women's rear support. It is so very important that traditional women's work is valued. (I have even internalized society's attitudes of it to some extent- because being an activist is a continual process of self-work- as progress does not arise without it!) It is of course extremely important that women have opportunities to take part in non-traditional women's roles and that they are recognized for it. Unfortunately, sexism or "sectarianism" still exists today all over the world and consequently so does our struggle against it. Long live the Partisanka- all of you- the fighters, the afw, the sanitet, and all others. SMRT FAZISMU - DEATH TO FASCISM and sexism too. 

In this episode I discuss the toxic revisionist reactions of the film by well-known American media outlets- LA Times and Variety- who both commit genocide denial by denying the suffering of non-Jewish victims who composed the vast majority of the victims. 

Please don't let their polemical "reviews" stop you from watching this amazing film. The film, which is based on true stories, is incredible and of course so so so incredibly sad (which words cannot describe.) The vast majority of the elements are historically accurate and are actually *incredibly* tame depictions of the horrors that happened there. 

smrt fašizmu  -  death to fascism