The 43 Group ......... confronting the Blackshirts just months after the defeat of Fascism

 I once thought that antisemitism was defeated in the ruins of Berlin in 1945, but that was naive as events across Europe and beyond continue to hammer home, and pretty much ignored the experiences of Jewish people before and after that defeat.

Anti fascist demonstrations, Bell Vue, Manchester, 1962

Taking the long view given its history over the last 2000 years, I shouldn’t have been surprised, nor that even after the defeat of fascism at the end of the last world war fascist groups would be emboldened to come out of the shadows just months after the end of that conflict.

And the account of their emergence is the subject of“The 43 Group Battling with Mosley’s Blackshirts”, by Maurice Beckham, which tells the story of the 43 Group which was an English anti-fascist group set up by Jewish ex-servicemen and women after the Second World War. 

They did this when upon returning to London, they encountered British fascist organisations staging meetings in public places, and perpetuating violent attacks on Jewish individuals and property in London.

The 43 Group broke up far-right meetings, infiltrated fascist groups, and confronted the fascists in street fighting. 

Some of the ex servicemen involved in the group had been awarded medals for victory in the field, or like Maurice Beckham had served in the Merchant Navy during the war, living through through two torpedo attacks. 

The group voluntarily disbanded in 1950, after its members considered that the immediate threat had passed. 

But just sixteen years later, Group 62 was established which was largely in response to the resurgence of fascism in Britain at the time, and particularly the creation of Colin Jordan's National Socialist Movement, and modeled itself on the earlier group.**

Picture; demonstration at Belle Vue, Demonstration against Oswald Mosley, 1962, m07971, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

* The 43 Group Battling with Mosley’s Blackshirts”, by Maurice Beckham, 2013

** 43 Group, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43_Group