19.09.2005 My family as many others in Russia has come to know the dread of war & totalitarianism!

An Interview with Maxim Efimov, Head of the Youth Anti-fascist center, Chair of the Karelian regional department of Interregional youth social & charity organization УYouth Human Rights GroupФ (YHRG), editor of the anti-fascist bulletin УZero oТclockФ.

-Maxim, your organization the Karelian regional department of Interregional youth social & charity organization УYouth Human Rights GroupФ, works together with the Karelian Union of Young Ex-prisoners in German Death Camps. What is this cooperation aimed at?
-It is an unprecedented cooperation. Both organizations work to withstand the proliferation of nationalist, fascist & racist ideas in Russian society. A work of more than 10 years enabled the ex-prisoners to create a Museum in memoriam of the victims of fascism in honor of M. Colbet. This Museum is a warning to all of us, a memory of the dark time of Nazism. The Museum has a great educational potential. The exhibits produce the most unforgettable impression. We, in our turn, publish an anti-fascist bulletin, read lectures at schools on these topics, we have created an I-net site. Besides our organizationТs lawyers provide support for the young ex-prisoners. We have joined efforts now by creating a youth anti-fascist center on the base of the Museum.
-Would you please comment upon this Center?
-I should therefore I would. The idea of creating this center belongs mainly to Vadim Nikolaevich Mizko, the Chair of the Karelian Union of Young Ex-prisoners in German Death Camps. He found me working on the same issues he was, & so it all began. We started with painting out fascist graffiti in the Jewish cemetery in Petrozavodsk. The acts of vandalism, desecration of Jewish tombs have become a standard regular job for local nazis. And thatТs for that we have people in this city, who had survived the Holocaust! It is a horror to imagine what should they feel on seeing this. We couldnТt put up with the shameful status quo & decided to paint out all this blasphemy, reproachable in any normal society.
-By the way, the Museum is not so widely known in Petrozavodsk, is it?
-ThatТs quite right! It sounds funny, but the Karelian Museum first came to be heard of in Germany & then in Petrozavodsk.
No so long ago we were visited by a group of German movie-makers, working on a film about death camps ex-prisoners. They included a bit about this Museum into their film. It was so hard to break through different bureaucratic barriers. It was not long since the Museum finally got a room just to keep the exhibits in, while they had a lot to exhibit. It all resulted in a bulk of the Museum funds going out of order & it will require effort & money to reconstruct what has been lost. It was in the last month that due to Karelian Ministry of Social Care Nikolay Chernenko the Museum acquired its own premises. Soon the exposition will be available to everyone. Their address now is ul. Pravdy, 36.
-Why did you decide to edit an anti-fascist bulletin УZero oТclockФ?
-By the way, I have a curious thing to remember about its first issue. I placed an announcement of an article headlined УDegenerates in PowerФ on the cover. On seeing this a director of some firm without having read the article itself warned me that I was to be careful in criticizing local authoritiesЕAnd the article was about the politicians of the Third Reich. We used to laugh upon this a lot. Journalism is on one hand my hobby, my art, my way of self-expression, on another Ц my civil position. You canТt stay mute if something disturbs you, if you deem the social system unfair. You must explicitly express your attitude towards this & try to get things better.
-ThatТs why you created a YHRG?
-Exactly. Good people work with me artis gratia who feel responsible for things happening around us. I am entitled to call them Citizens.
-Please, would you say something more about your bulletin, how it was created, its aims, its authors & readers?
-With pleasure. The aims are outlined in the title of the bulletin Ц it is anti-fascist & a youth one, therefore it aims at preventing the spread of fascism & nationalism among young people, by the means of press. The idea is mine. According to my view of the problem I select illustrations & articles, place stresses. The work on the bulletin involves students & aspirants of Petrozavodsk universities (colleges, academies, etc.), people, who care about the fascist & nationalist trends spreading in our country & who have an penchant for journalism, interested in people, their history & social & political life. The support of Barents Region Secretariat enables us to publish 4 issues. We have in general 18 issues in e-format.
-Why is the spread of fascism & nationalism so disturbing for you? What makes you do all this?
-First, a moral law inside me, my ideas of good & ill, regardless of what the others think. I want to live in a fair & happy society according to human laws, not laws of the jungle. I am against complex organisms depending on the unicellular. My grandfather was repressed. My grandmother spent her life working for the defense. My family as many others in Russia has come to know the dread of war & totalitarianism. I donТt want my country to step into the same river again. I believe in RussiaТs loadstar!
Interviewed by Lena Zui