IBMT commemorates 1936 anti-fascist victory in London
Max Levitas
Cable Street in London’s East End, an area which is now predominantly Bengali as it had been predominantly Jewish in 1936, saw 1,000 people march this October 2 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the defeat of the attempt of the British Union of Fascists to stage their hate match through the area. See here for the inspiring rally speech of the 96 year old Dublin-born veteran of the Battle of Cable Street, Max Levitas, and here for Max’s talk to mark the 70th anniversary in 2006. They did not pass!
The International Brigade Memorial Trust held its annual general meeting in London to coincide with this 75th commemoration and – led by President Marlene Sidaway, Chair Dolores West and Secretary Jim Jump – was given pride of place on the march, immediately behind the Bengali and Jewish community groups, in carrying the memorial banner of the International Brigade’s British Battalion. The memorial banner of the Connolly Column was carried by Annette and Manus O’Riordan and Ruth Levitas, in particular memory of Irish International Brigade parents Michael O’Riordan (1917-2006) and Maurice Levitas (1917-2001), and it was a particular source of pride for Ruth that her father’s elder brother, Max Levitas, linked the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street to that of the Spanish Anti-Fascist War in his keynote address to the rally.
I was there and felt a great swell of pride,as both my parents were at cable st in 1936 and my father Harold Horne was with the british battalion and was wounded twice. In his memoirs he quoted Brecht,
from 1945 The bitch that spawned him is in heat again, vigilance
NO PASARAN
Remembering Bert Ramelson and Bill Alexander