Connor Norton - In laws, rhetoric and acts of violence, Europe is rewriting dark chapters of its past

Multiple countries, most notably Poland, have recently seemed to dive down a path of historical revisionism in the name of nationalism or prejudice, specifically in assigning blame for/ denying the atrocities of the holocaust. The most poignant example of this is Poland's new law criminalizing the suggestion that the polish were responsible for any of the horrid crimes of WWII, specifically targeting phrases such as "Polish death camps" being used to describe the Nazi-established concentration camps in Poland such as the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau. Although intended to showcase the many Poles victimized by blanket terms insinuating greater Polish involvement in Nazi crimes, it problematically tries to simplify a messy situation by assigning good-guys and bad-guys or perpetrators and victims when in actuality there's a grey area concerning Poles who did participate and Germans who didn't; this is only complicated by a resurgence in antisemitism that is emblematic of prejudices that have existed in both Poland and Germany since before the second world war. There has also been a growing acceptance of Nazi-esque bias against minority groups, as seen with renewed persecution of Muslims and Jews by radical political groups in Europe; and this isn't just me comparing anti-Muslim and antisemitic attitudes to Nazi-ism. The growing success of political parties with historical ties to the Nazi party as well as parties openly espousing neo-Nazi ideals and admirations is directly related to pushes in such racially-charged rhetoric, and a push towards acceptance of historical racism can be seen in such specific events as when the French government commemorated a potently and openly antisemitic writer who was later convicted of aiding Nazis during their occupation of the country (France revoked his commemoration in response to public backlash). This is only a trend, but it's extremely troubling for obvious reasons.

This relates to the period immediately before the Civil Rights era during which there was a mass push, all across America but more specifically in the South, to glorify older racially motivated forces and racist ideals. This is seen in factors such as a resurgence of the KKK, the erecting of countless monuments and memorials for racist/controversial figures (namely those from the Civil War but also beyond that), and a push towards education highlighting the antebellum view of the Old South, downplaying the atrocities of chattel slavery and the inherent injustices or unfairness of the man-run plantation system. This wasn't exactly a good thing and we struggle with the effects of such a revisionist outlook on America's historical flaws and conflicts even to this day.