© Leanne Boulton, All Rights Reserved
A Douglas DC-3 Dakota/C-47 Skytrain, with invasion stripes, sitting on the ramp at Prestwick Airport, Scotland, on a stopover for it's journey to the Daks Over Normandy commemoration in 2019.
79 years ago today Operation Overlord began with airborne troops from the US, Canada and the UK dropping behind enemy lines to secure vital infrastructure and destroy gun batteries. Their mission was vital in preparation for the pending beach landings.
Almost 160,000 troops would arrive in Normandy on D-Day and allied forces suffered at least 10,000 casualties in that first vital 24 hours.
Far right politics with nationalistic and fascist polices are rising in many countries around the world. Neo-Nazi groups are rising and brazenly waving swastika flags on the street. Minority groups are being abused, dehumanised, attacked and legislated against. Freedoms and rights to protest are being eroded. Freedoms of association and trade union powers are being eroded. LGBT communities are being scapegoated and the disabled are being dehumanised by mainstream media, and in politics. Germany in the 1930s was not dissimilar, have we learned nothing?
Millions died in sacrifice to fight the enemies of humanity and their fascist ideologies. Ideologies that saw the mass murder of millions of innocent people simply for being gay, trans, disabled, artists, writers, socialists, Jewish, Roma, Slavic.
Minorities that were scapegoated and dehumanised in order to facilitate their genocide.
Wake up. Remember. Learn. We must push back against the scapegoating and dehumanisation of minority groups by our press and politics.
We must not let the sacrifice of a generation and more be in vain.
They fought for a free and democratic world. That freedom and democracy is under threat.
Lest we forget...
First they came...
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