Thread: One of the mendacious claims of the far right is that they want free speech & to protect culture.

In fact they want hate speech to dehumanise minorities & they destroy culture & art. Here’s an overview of some of the murders of artists, that they committed.

Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1896-1944) was an Austrian woman murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. She even gave art therapy classes to children in a Nazi ghetto at Terezin. This was typical of her love of art & of children.

Abraham Icek Tuschinski (1886-1942) was a Jewish-Dutch businessman & art supporter. His monument is the magnificent Tuschinski theatre in Amsterdam. He was murdered at Auschwitz.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) is one of the most important German artists of the 20th C. He was persecuted by the Nazis, his art was declared to be Entartete Kunst (degenerate art). The abuse led him into a cycle of depression such that he took his own life.

Julius Klinger (1876-1942) was a superb Austrian artist & graphic designer. His work is still influential today. As a Jew he was expelled to Minsk & was believed to have been murdered there by the Fascists.

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (1899-1940) was an important German artist. She suffered from Schizophrenia & the Nazis sterilised her against her will. She was murdered by the far right as part of a Nazi euthanasia program

Samuel J de Mesquita (1868-1944) was a Jewish Dutch graphic designer; one of his students was MC Escher. He, his wife & son were murdered by the Nazis. The parents were murdered in the Auschwitz gas chambers, their son at Theresienstadt.

Felix Nussbaum (1904-44), a German Jewish painter, was one of the most important artists of the 20th C. He documented the nihilism & evil of the Far Right. His work brings home the dangers of the Fascist creed. He & his wife were murdered at Auschwitz.

Karl Pärsimägi (1902-42) was an Estonian Fauvist painter & proud Estonian. He was arrested in Paris & moved to Auschwitz. It’s surmised that he was murdered for being gay.

Charlotte Salomon (1917-43) was a German Jewish artist who created a ‘diary’ of autobiographical paintings. Her work is profoundly moving. She was captured in 1943 in France & sent to Auschwitz. She & her unborn child were murdered there.

Other artists were persecuted, attacked, hunted or harassed to death by Fascists. The case of Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) is one such. The far right banned most modern art including the greatest artist of the 20th C, Picasso.

The Fascists loved describing Jews, LGBTQI & Roma as ‘degenerate’. Indeed they created an exhibition called degenerate art (Entartete Kunst). Their cognitive dissonance is telling, even today. . @IzzyKamikaze