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Peter Marriner: undercover hero of the anti-fascist movement
Peter Marriner, who has died at the age of 77, was an undercover informant in the extreme right for many years, and one of those extraordinary people, true heroes of the anti-fascist movement, to whom we owe an enormous debt of gratitude for their courage and self-sacrifice. But the story of his initial introduction into Continue reading
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This lazy Guardian hatchet job on a great journalist is simply a disgrace
There is a lot of discussion going on around the Guardian’s review of Margaret Renn’s biography of the journalist Paul Foot, who died 20 years ago this month. Let me declare an interest here: in the early 1980s, when I was working in my spare time for Searchlight, I worked with Paul on many occasions, Continue reading
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The Music of Terezin
I’ve written before about Terezin, or Theresienstadt, the concentration camp ghetto near Prague where Czech Jews – including the cream of Jewish and Czech cultural life – were incarcerated by the Nazis before being transported to Auschwitz and death. Two years ago the BBC broadcast a day of music of Terezin from the Barbican. Fifteen Continue reading
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Ilse Weber, 1903 – 1944. Poet and writer, murdered by the Nazis
This month marks the anniversary of the birth of Ilse Weber, born in January 1903, an accomplished poet, songwriter and writer sent to the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia in 1942, and murdered in Auschwitz two years later.. Her eldest son, Hanus, was one of the children rescued from the Nazis by Nicholas Winton and Continue reading
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Terezin – memorialised in music
Originally posted online 24 January 2022 Holocaust Memorial Day falls this week, and the BBC’s contribution, yesterday, was an extraordinary day of music at the Barbican Centre, music written in Nazi camps and wartime ghettos by Jewish composers. Most were held in Terezin, or Theresienstadt as the Nazis called it, just north of Prague in Continue reading
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Infiltrating a right wing plot to “smash” Searchlight – the inside story
Forty years on – the inside story of how we infiltrated a right wing plot to “smash” Searchlight Continue reading
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Avtar Singh Jouhl (1937-2022) : Founder of the Indian Workers’ Association, and friend and ally of Searchlight
The Searchlight team was saddened to hear of the death Avtar Singh Jouhl, an old friend and ally of the magazine, who died on on 7th October 2022. Searchlight worked with Avtar Jouhl throughout his time at the Indian Workers’ Association and we had spent time with him more recently when we gathered at the Continue reading
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Theatre Review: The Accidental Death of an Anarchist, by Dario Fo and Franca Rame.
Playing at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, till 9 September 2023. The Accidental Death of an Anarchist is a play which arose from events in December 1969, when Italian fascists bombed the Piazza Fontana in Milan killing 17 people and injuring 88. It was the deadliest of several bombs planted that day by the group Continue reading
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The Coup Maker
GK Young – the senior British intelligence officer who helped overthrow the Iranian government in 1953 and went on to plan for a military coup in Britain. Continue reading
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Bologna, 2 August 1980- never forget, never forgive
After the fascist outrage at Bologna railway station on this day in 1980, members of the group responsible fled to the UK where they were sheltered and grew rich… Continue reading
About Me
I’ve been an active anti-fascist since 1974, working for Searchlight magazine from 1975 till 1989. From 1983 till 1989 I was its editor and co-wrote ‘The Other Face of Terror’, with Ray Hill, the celebrated Searchlight infiltrator into the European neo-Nazi movement. After that, and for the next 20 years, I worked as an investigative journalist with ITV’s World in Action and the BBC’s Panorama. I blog about the history and practice of anti-fascism, especially in the UK.
andy bell 