the statues remain when the arguments have faded

rob mahurin — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 04:29:25 GMT

I was reminded today of this thing I wrote in 2017, early in the first Trump administration, shortly after the violent pro-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

There's an image macro floating around that says we should "never remove memorials," and gives the example of the death camp at Auschwitz, which still stands thanks in part to the efforts of the few who survived there, who wanted the world to remember that such a disaster should never be repeated.

I'm all for keeping Auschwitz up as a reminder of the things that happened there. But now imagine that when you leave Auschwitz (which is kind of out in the country) and go into Myslowice or Katowice or Kraków, you find at the center of town a stone Nazi soldier, saluting from a plinth, over this inscription:

mask of the robtasm (Posts about racism)

the statues remain when the arguments have faded