I'm going to have to locate and rewatch the 2015 Polish horror film Demon.
It deals with how communities, and especially "polite society" bury the trauma of past atrocities (in this case the fate of Jewish people in Poland during WW2), and I wonder if it would be a good reflection for some of us right now who are watching current atrocities unfold.
For one thing, if we ever move forward, as a society, it cannot be at the expense of the truth. People will want their participation in fascism to be forgotten as well as the memory of how they benefitted.
In "Demon", it is implied that the family wealth comes from gaining land once the Jewish occupants were murdered or dispossessed. But here in 2025 I just saw today a screenshot of a social media post of someone delighted that they can buy trucks that belonged to immigrants for cheap.
Do not forget. Do not paper it over.
I don't think forgiveness or redemption are impossible, but they don't look like silencing the past & continuing to profit from crimes against humanity. Redemption cannot be had without an admission of guilt *and* restitution.
We will not let the fascists hide behind facades of politeness. We will not simply move on and forget. We must not.
Holding things in memory is one of our tasks. Bearing witness is one of our tasks.
Don't drown in bad news, but don't hide from uncomfortable realities either. We owe it to everyone who is kidnapped, everyone whose family is ripped away, everyone who loses everything, & everyone who dies to not simply forget and move on. The trauma & the guilt will remain even if we try to forget the cause.
So remembering is important. Keeping the truth alive is important.
Say it with me: we will not forget.
My experience with abusers taught me that you have to keep track of what *really* happened, because once you are far away from them, in the broad light of day, you may start to wonder "was it really that bad?"
So you have to keep alive some part of the memory. You have to make a pact with yourself to remember what you know: yes, it was horrific.
The same applies culturally. If we ever do see a better day (I believe we will), we must not allow ourselves to forget that it was in fact "that bad."
Keeping the truth alive is defiance and resistance too.
Fascists don't believe in truth—or rather, they don't believe in facts: they believe Truth to be something that is manufactured in the mind and imposed on the world by force.
So yeah, write it down. Keep records. Tell others.
The fascists are doing everything they can to garble reality, to make fact & fiction indistinguishable. Don't let their denial stop you: you and I know that in reality there are knowable facts.
Artemis
cy
bovaz