About 300 neo-Nazis marched through Madrid to pay tribute to the Blue Division, the Spanish volunteers who fought alongside the Nazis in World War II.
The event was convened by the Patriotic Youth, a Madrid neo-Nazi organization, and was supported by different neo-Nazi and fascist groups across Spain, such as the España2000 party or La Falange, whose leader, Manuel Andrino, attended the march.
Neo-Nazi groups from all over Spain meet in Madrid each year to carry out this act, which coincides with the anniversary of the 1943 Battle of Krasny Bor.
The march, which went through several streets of Madrid to the city’s Almudena cemetery, proceeded behind a banner of the Blue Division shield with the legend “Honour and glory to the fallen.” Participants made the Nazi salute and sang fascist songs.
A woman, identified as neo-Nazi Isabel Medina Peralta, addressed the event dressed in a blue shirt and was recorded saying: “It is our supreme obligation to fight for Spain, to fight for Europe, now weak and liquidated by the enemy. The enemy will always be the same, although with different masks: the Jew. […] The Jew is the culprit and the Blue Division fought it.”
The event featured a religious service in front of a monument to the Blue Division, on which a wreath of flowers with a swastika was placed. A priest addressed the audience saying: “Marxism, just like yesterday […] continues trying to disturb the peace of our society, disturb the peace of the spirits and, above all, remove the prince of peace, our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Also addressing the attendees was Ignacio Menéndez, a lawyer for the far-right extremist Carlos García Juliá, the co-author of the 1977 Atocha massacre, who has been recently released from prison.
Menéndez asked attendees not to comply with measures against COVID-19: “You need to violate the curfew, that you meet with your family and friends, that you be more than six like we are here today; and that you embrace each other, and that you sing and that you live joyfully. Because fascism is joy.”
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE), the country’s EJC affiliate, condemned the incident in the strongest terms.
“We consider it unacceptable that in a solid democracy under the rule of law such as Spain, such remarks go unpunished.”
“That is why we demand that the Office of the Prosecutor for Hate Crimes investigate this incident and, where appropriate, prosecute and condemn these criminal acts.”
“In addition, the FCJE, together the Platform against Antisemitism and the Movement against Intolerance, will act with all the legal tools at our disposal.”
