Free Dr.Hussam Abu Safiya Now!

From inside an underground Israeli detention facility, with his features barely recognizable after severe beatings, Palestinian doctor and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, Hussam Abu Safiya said he had been transferred to another prison in preparation for his murder. 

Physicians for Human Rights Israel say Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, is in immediate danger of dying in Israeli detention. His lawyer, Nasser Odeh, who  visited him on July 2 at the underground Rakefet interrogation unit inside Nitzan Prison  said he barely recognized the man brought before him, shackled hand and foot, flanked by masked guards, his head, eyes, ears and neck covered in fresh injuries. Abu Safiya struggled to breathe and speak, couldn’t sit upright without nearly collapsing, and seemed close to losing consciousness.  He was too frightened to speak freely. He told his lawyer: "This is the last time you will see me... They brought me here to kill me. I do not see myself leaving here alive. This is the end."

No sentence should ever have to carry that much pain. No doctor, whose hands were devoted to saving lives, should have to utter those words.

According to the affidavit, guards entered his solitary cell after his Supreme Court hearing and beat him with a hammer and batons. Since his transfer to Rakefet on June 24 he has been beaten daily, repeatedly to the point of losing consciousness, with no medical care.  

The selfless and heroic Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya dedicated his life to saving children and the wounded in Gaza’s shattered hospitals, only to be ripped from Kamal Adwan Hospital in a brutal raid, detained without charge  or  trial since December 2024, and subjected to torture, medical neglect, freezing cells, and endless suffering. 

 Dr Abu Safiya, became the face of Gaza’s collapsing healthcare system. Throughout repeated assaults on Kamal Adwan Hospital, he refused to abandon his patients.Each time the hospital was raided or forced out of service, he and his colleagues fought to reopen it.  

During the siege of northern Gaza, Kamal Adwan became the final functioning major hospital serving an estimated 75,000 people. Dr Abu Safiya continued treating the wounded, starving children, malnourished infants and critically ill patients while documenting the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding around him. Even after he himself was injured and after his son was killed, he refused to leave.  

On 27th December 2024, Israeli forces raided the hospital once again, detained Dr Abu Safiya alongside staff and patients, and rendered the last major hospital in northern Gaza inoperable.  

His lawyer and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI ) are demanding his immediate transfer, an independent medical examination and his release, warning that any delay could cost him his life.  

Held in facilities like the notorious Negev detention center in southern Israel, he was abducted alongside other medical staff, patients, and even a fellow paramedic, Hatem Ismail Rayyan, who recently died in the same prison after 14 months of detention, highlighting the deadly risks faced by these detainees.   

His wife Albina, has issued desperate pleas to the world, insisting that his only “crime” was upholding his medical oath by saving the lives of the wounded, including children playing amid rubble, and refusing to evacuate despite evacuation orders.

She demands urgent intervention before he succumbs to his deteriorating health, echoing fears from his family that his life hangs by a thread without immediate action.   

Global organizations like HW4 Palestine, Amnesty International , Human Rights Watch, UN Human Rights council, Doctors against Genocide, Hind Rajab Foundation, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and many others have called for an urgent independent medical examination, immediate intervention and Dr Abu Safiya’s release. Amnesty International, the World Health Organization, and advocacy groups  have amplified these calls, organizing open letters, protests, and campaigns for his release, emphasizing that his detention has further crippled Gaza’s already decimated healthcare infrastructure.   

Fact-checks from outlets like Al Jazeera have debunked smear campaigns against him, including unsubstantiated Israeli claims repeated in media like The New York Post that he or the hospital were linked to militant activities, allegations dismissed as falsehoods amid a broader pattern of targeting Palestinian medical workers.   

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya’s words from Ofer prison are clear: “My only crime is being a doctor.” He, along with more than 100 doctors and nurses, is being punished simply for carrying the duty of treating Gaza’s wounded.  

Imagine the hands that healed Gaza’s tiniest hearts, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, pediatrician, hero, now chained in a frozen Israeli cell since December 2024. No charges. Just torture: beatings, starvation, medical neglect pushing his exhausted body to the brink. His lawyer warns: every silent day edges him closer to death. This isn’t justice. It’s erasure! The doctor who braved bombs to save children is being broken for daring to care. But we won’t let him vanish.   

From any country stand in solidarity with Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya . From streets to screens,  from hospitals to  universties,  amplify his cry. Share, shout, demand freedom.   

Your voice could thaw his hell, mend his wounds, restore hope. One billion strong, we rise for the healers, the innocent, the oppressed. Speaking about him could save his life. Silence kills.   

Israel classifies Abu Safiya as a Hamas officer. In 18 months of detention it has produced no charge, no evidence, and no trial. His appeal was heard June 10 and rejected days later behind closed doors, on secret intelligence neither he nor his lawyers may see. The Israel Prisons Service says it operates within the law under judicial review and examines every complaint under protocol.  

Haaretz’s own editorial board, not a Palestinian advocacy group, has told the Israeli state to indict Abu Safiya or release him. A charge requires proof. Proof invites scrutiny of what happened at Kamal Adwan — the siege, the bombed wards, the children who died for want of oxygen. Abu Safiya is not only a doctor. He is a witness, one of 14 Gazan doctors held without charge, among more than 1,300 Palestinians disappeared into the same law. His is the face the world can see. Most cannot.

Arm yourself with knowledge to counter the propagandist lies:  

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya is NOT a member of Hamas. He is a neonatal Paediatrician and a member of the Medical Services Corp, historically under the umbrella of the Palestinian Authority. 

This position carries with it the default rank of Colonel. His branch, which operates out of Gaza, was under the authority of the governing body of Gaza; Hamas.

This does not make him a member of Hamas. This does not make him a legitimate military target. Medics, even military medics, are not legitimate military targets, in accordance with the Geneva Convention. 

He is as much a member of Hamas as a pre school teacher working under the Gaza Ministry of Education teaching 4 year old children to read. Dr Hussam Abu Safiya wore a white coat to save lives, not chains to lose his freedom. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya stands as a symbol of conscience, compassion, and courage, now trapped while humanity watches. 

His courage reflects the quiet strength of the Palestinian people — choosing care over fear, duty over despair. This is not one man's story. It is the story of every doctor who chose duty over fear. Of every family waiting. Of every soul that still believes dignity must be protected. Raise your voice. Because silence helps oppression, but voices create change.  

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya stood where humanity was collapsing, refusing to abandon his patients even as hospitals were turned into targets and death surrounded every corridor. 

While others measured survival by minutes, he measured it by the number of children he could still save. Now the man who healed the wounded has become one of them.

A physician should never become a prisoner for choosing compassion over fear. A healer should never have to wonder whether tomorrow will come. The world celebrates those who save lives, until the lives being saved are Palestinian.

“They brought me here to kill me.” Those words are more than a plea. They are an indictment of a silence that has lasted far too long. They force us to ask what remains of our humanity when the doctor becomes the victim, when mercy is punished, and when those who dedicate their lives to others are left to face unimaginable suffering alone.History remembers the names of those who refused to abandon their people. It also remembers those who looked away.

This is the story of every healer targeted, every life silenced, every act of humanity crushed under occupation. Dr. Hussam once held dying children in his arms and gave them hope. Now the world must hold his name in our voices so he doesn’t die forgotten in an Israeli dungeon. From every corner of the globe, speak his name. Share his story. Tag friends, flood timelines, demand his immediate release. One voice becomes a chorus.  

A billion voices become unstoppable. Speaking about him could save his life. Silence costs lives.  Anyone still siding with Israel and shielding them from international condemnation is guilty of aiding and abetting the torture of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and all those held hostage in Israeli dungeons. 

The world has a moral duty to free human beings from this level of savagery. This isn’t just another forgotten headline in the fog of conflict, it’s a stark reminder of the human cost. Dr. Abu Safiya’s story, captured in viral images of him walking barefoot through rubble toward his captors, demands we don’t look away. 

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya threatens Israel just by the depth of his humanity and dignity. They fear him as a symbol of the future they have worked tirelessly to deny his people. He represents to them the defiance of the ethno-supremacist barbarism they have and continue to erroneously conflate with human progress.

The world must not allow yet another doctor to be murdered ! This is not a one off. It's part of Israel’s systematic campaign of mass arrest and imprisonment that has gotten much worse since 2023. His case is not unique. Hundreds of Palestinians, including healthcare workers, have been detained during the genocide, with many subjected to enforced disappearance and allegations of torture and other ill-treatment. 

Across Gaza, hospitals have been repeatedly attacked and the healthcare system has been systematically devastated despite the special protections afforded to medical facilities and personnel under international humanitarian law.  

Medical neutrality is one of the oldest and most fundamental principles of medicine. It demands that healthcare workers are protected, not targeted; that hospitals are sanctuaries, not battlefields; and that doctors are never punished for treating the sick and injured. 

When a doctor who dedicated his life to saving children is reportedly beaten, tortured, denied medical care and left fearing for his life, silence is not professional neutrality. It is a failure of moral leadership.  This is why Britain’s medical institutions must speak with one voice. 

The Royal Colleges, the British Medical Association, the GMC, NHS leaders, universities, trade unions and every organisation claiming to uphold medical ethics should publicly demand the protection of healthcare workers wherever they are threatened. 

Their silence in the face of allegations concerning fellow clinicians undermines the universal principles upon which medicine is built. 

The UK Government has clear responsibilities. It should publicly call for the immediate protection and release of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya; demand independent medical and legal access; press for a full, impartial investigation into allegations of torture and mistreatment; work to ensure accountability where international law has been violated; and ensure that the United Kingdom fully complies with its obligations under international humanitarian law and the Genocide Convention.  

These are not partisan demands. They are demands rooted in the protection of human life, medical ethics and the rule of law.  Every day that passes without meaningful international action increases the risk that Dr Abu Safiya will become another doctor who does not survive detention. History remembers those who defended humanity when it mattered most.  

The question now is whether Britain’s Government and its medical profession will choose to stand with a doctor who risked everything for his patients—or remain silent while his lawyer warns that he may not survive.

At present, Israel holds more than 9,000 Palestinian political prisoners in detention, including 350 children.They face systematic torture, sexual violence, and ill-treatment. Often they are held without charge. Dr. Marwan Al-Hams is also facing daily torture sessions.   

According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, Dr. Al-Hams is being subjected to severe torture that stopped his heart and is putting his life in immediate danger. Palestinian doctors are being held hostage in Israeli dungeons for saving lives during the genocide.

The Hippocratic Oath exposes the hypocrisy of the world as it insists on remaining silent.

May Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s voice never be buried beneath the rubble of indifference. Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh was tortured to death in Israeli prisons. Save Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and Dr. Marwan Al-Hams before they meet the same fate.

Please  call on the Government to: - 

Demand Dr. Abu Safiya’s immediate access to emergency hospitalisation and an independent medical evaluation  

- Demand Dr. Abu Safiya’s immediate release from detention 

- Ensure Dr. Abu Safiya’s transfer to hospital includes access to his family and and legal counsel

 - Demand the release of all Palestinians imprisoned by Israel and immediate sanctions 

ACT NOW: 

Email: fcdo.correspondence@fcdo.gov.uk Tel: 020 7008 5000 

Twitter:  @FCDOGovUK Facebook: @ForeignCommonwealthAndDevelopmentOffice 

Instagram: @ForeignAndDevelopmentOffice  

Happy 78th birthday NHS

 

Nye Bevans legacy came into the world 78 years ago this morning when, then Minister of Health in Attlee’s post-war government, Nye Bevan, the Labour Minister of Health, symbolically marked the occasion at Park Hospital in Davyhulme, near Manchester (now Trafford General Hospital). He received the keys from Lancashire County Council, and the hospital is widely recognised as the “birthplace of the NHS.” 

Nye was one of the most important ministers of the post-war Labour Government and the chief architect of the NHS. He was born on 15 November 1897 in Tredegar in Wales. His father was a miner from  a poor working class family in which Bevan  gained first hand experiences of the problems  of poverty and disease. 

He was a rebel with many causes but is remembered mostly as the architect of the National Health Service. He remembered how  he had witnessed families with dreaded sickness who could not afford to pay doctors bills. In his home town of Tredegar  there existed a working mens medical aid society which was to serve him inspiration. He envigaged an NHS with comprehensive provision was on patient need, not wealth. 

Never one to back off from a fight , he bullied and cajoled , reasoned and argued until Health care free at the point of delivery was to become a right instead of a  luxury, and  helped make the biggest improvements to the quality of life for the average British person in living memory.

Bevan   on this  day  met 13-year-old Sylvia Diggory, often described as the first NHS patient. This was the climax of years of planning to deliver comprehensive healthcare free at the point of use, funded mainly through taxation (and National Insurance contributions), available to all regardless of ability to pay. 

At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Ministry of Health established central coordination over voluntary (charity-run) and municipal hospitals. This gave government direction over hospital resources for wartime casualties and demonstrated that a nationally coordinated system was feasible. It directly influenced post-war thinking.  

In 1942 The Beveridge Report: Economist William Beveridge’s Social Insurance and Allied Services identified the “five giants” on the road to reconstruction: Want (poverty), Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness (unemployment). It proposed a comprehensive welfare state with universal social insurance and a national health service free at the point of use. The report was hugely popular with the public and shaped the post-war Labour government’s agenda (though the detailed structure of the NHS was developed later).   

In 1944 The Wartime Coalition White Paper: Under Conservative Health Minister Henry Willink, the coalition government published A National Health Service. It proposed a comprehensive, free service but placed administration with local authorities (joint boards) and left most voluntary hospitals independent.   

In 1945–1946 Bevan’s radical plan: After Labour’s landslide victory, Bevan rejected local-authority control as too fragmented. His plan nationalised all hospitals (voluntary and municipal) and created a regional structure under central government. 

After tough Cabinet and parliamentary negotiations (with some concessions), the National Health Service Act 1946 received Royal Assent on 6th November 1946 and came into force on 5th July 1948.  The British Medical Association (BMA) strongly opposed key elements, fearing loss of professional independence, a salaried service, and reduced earnings. In January 1948 a BMA vote showed 84% of GPs against joining. There were threats of non-cooperation or boycott. Bevan negotiated hard, securing the participation of the vast majority of doctors by launch day through concessions:  GPs remained independent contractors paid by capitation (per patient registered); consultants could continue private practice. Bevan later quipped that he had to “stuff their mouths with gold” to win over the consultants.  The public overwhelmingly welcomed the NHS. Around 95% of the population had registered with a GP before launch. In a society still recovering from war, facing austerity, and accustomed to state planning, the promise of care “from the cradle to the grave” without the fear of crippling medical bills resonated deeply. Post-war anxieties about infectious diseases (measles had no vaccine until the 1960s and could cause serious complications) formed part of the broader health context, though the primary appeal was universal access and security.   

The NHS represented a bold post-war vision realised through compromise. It transformed healthcare access for millions and remains one of Britain’s most enduring institutions. 

Nye Bevan, once wrote, “No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.” This statement, which is at the heart of our health service, still commands support from the vast majority of the UK population. The NHS encapsulates everything which Bevan stood for, and was the culmination of a life devoted to improving the lives of men and women across the country.

For the first-time doctors, nurses, opticians, dentists and pharmacists all worked under one organisation. It was a ray of hope in that bleak time, and it remains one today. The creation of the NHS in 1948 was the product of years of hard work and a motivation from various figures who felt the current healthcare system was insufficient and needed to be revolutionised. 

Born to a post-war Britain amidst the rubble of war and a skeptical medical profession, the NHS has had its ups and downs over the years. However, its role and importance as a symbol of our Britishness and intense pride in being able to provide universal care, free at the point of delivery, has remained throughout, out of the belief that healthcare should be available to all, regardless of wealth, with health and care as priorities – not profit, .these ideals remains one of the NHS’s core principles.

Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, on the first day of the National Health Service, 5 July 1948 at Park Hospital, Davyhulme, near Manchester. 

These ideas can be traced back to the early 1900s with the Minority Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law in 1909. The report was headed by the socialist Beatrice Webb who argued that a new system was needed to replace the antiquated ideas of the Poor Law which was still in existence from the times of the workhouses in the Victorian era. Those who were involved in the report believed it was a narrow-minded approach from those in charge to expect those in poverty to be entirely accountable for themselves. Despite the strong arguments provided in the report, it still proved unsuccessful and many ideas were disregarded by the new Liberal government.

Nevertheless, more and more people were beginning to speak out and be proactive, including Dr Benjamin Moore, a Liverpool physician who had great foresight and a pioneering vision of the future in healthcare. His ideas were written in “The Dawn of the Health Age” and he was probably one of the first to use the phrase ‘National Health Service’. His ideas led him to create the State Medical Service Association which held its first meeting in 1912. It would be another thirty years before his ideas would feature in the Beveridge Plan for the NHS.

Few now remember life before the NHS. Until 4 July 1948, every visit to a GP or hospital had to be paid for, unless covered by insurance or charity. Workers paid National Insurance but their dependents weren’t covered. Many families couldn’t afford private insurance, weren’t poor enough for ‘charity’, so suffered without health care. In some cases local authorities ran hospitals for the local ratepayers, an approach originating with the Poor Law. By 1929 the Local Government Act amounted to local authorities running services which provided medical treatment for everyone. On 1st April 1930 the London County Council then took over responsibility for around 140 hospitals, medical schools and other institutions after the abolition of the Metropolitan Asylums Board.

The idea of a state-run health service was mooted at the Labour Party Conference in 1934 by the then president of the Socialist Medical Association, Dr Somerville Hastings. Then the Beveridge Report of December  1942 called for 'Comprehensive Health and Rehabilitation Services' and set the seeds for the creation of the NHS and the creation of the Welfare State. Winston Churchill's attitude was one of ambivalence and when two years after the Beveridge report and it had become Labour Party policy, he became markedly more hostile. It was then  Aneurin Bevan who wholeheartedly embraced  and made sure  the project was implemented and delivered  after he became health minister in 1945.

It was a ray of hope in that bleak time, and it remains one today. The free service, based on need, not what money you have, is something that has become cherished by generation after generation. Many see it as Labour’s greatest socialist achievement. 

Today, we have a lot to thank the NHS for; from the introduction of polio and diphtheria vaccinations to all under 15-year olds to the success of smoking cessation services and cancer screening services, the NHS has been instrumental in many of the medical achievements the UK has seen over the last 78 years. a shining example of what separates us from the US. 

It offered for the first time a free healthcare system in the world that offered for completely free , healthcare that was made available on the basis of citizenship rather than the payment of fees or insurance. It has  since  played a vital role in caring for all aspects of our nations health. It has been the envy of the world ever since. 

Today, nine in 10 people agree that healthcare should be free of charge, more than four in five agree that care should be available to everyone. The NHS remains one of our most precious national assets and is the institution that the public have said makes them most proud to be British. It is built on the effort, skill, and commitment of its staff, the support of patients and service users, and strong relationships with the communities it serves.

The deep love we have for our health service is one of the most tremendous aspects of living in Britain. The knowledge that if you ever get ill or have an accident, you’ll get the care you need, whatever your circumstances, is one of Labour’s greatest achievements.

It wouldn’t be possible to run a 7-day NHS, caring for millions of people day-in-day-out without the hard work and dedication of its staff. Despite all the adversity that’s thrown at them: poor pay, bursary cuts, hospital parking fines and staff shortages to name a few; they continue to become stronger and relentlessly deliver fantastic healthcare to the nation .The recent pandemic have once again highlighted the strength, professionalism , dedication and bravery of our healthcare staff. It is truly inspiring to see how amazing the staff handled the awful situation and it was a testament to every healthcare worker throughout the UK. They are a credit to our nation and we couldn’t be more proud.

The NHS  here in Wales employs close to 72,000 staff which makes it Wales’ biggest employer.The NHS in Wales carries out around 360 thousand patient consultations every month in secondary care alone (not including GP visits or diagnostics) There are 79 babies born a day in Wales / with one birth every 18 minutes On average there are over 8,500 occupied NHS beds in Wales every day In the last 12 months, more than 20,000 patients started cancer treatment in Wales, But dedicated, compassionate staff  are under increased pressure, leading to low moral. Recent figures have emerged that 2/4s of hospitals have been warned about dangerous staff shortages.

We should not forget Nye Bevan's words who said ' It will last as long as their are folk with enough faith to fight for it. Despite all its current issues and flaws it is still the UK's greatest achievement- free healthcare for all at point of need from cradle to grave. Nye Bevan's words ring as true today as they ever did. 

On its birthday we should  remember  the NHS is a shining example of how a caring society can create  good and safe care based on social solidarity., making such a great contribution towards social and health equality. A  shining beacon to the world.

But while its values have stayed the same, almost everything else has changed.  Back in 1948, hospitals looked very different. There were no MRI scanners, no video appointments and definitely no NHS App. Doctors relied on far fewer tests and treatments than they do today, and many illnesses that are now treatable were much more dangerous.  

Since then, medicine and the NHS has come a long way.  Today, surgeons can perform incredibly complex operations, cancer treatments are more effective than ever, and babies born much earlier than expected have a much better chance of surviving thanks to advances in neonatal care. Technology has also made healthcare faster in many ways, with digital patient records, online prescriptions and virtual GP appointments becoming part of everyday life. 

Of course, none of this would be possible without the people working behind the scenes. When people think of the NHS, they often picture doctors and nurses, but there are thousands of other staff who keep it running. Paramedics, receptionists, cleaners, porters, pharmacists, therapists and laboratory scientists all play an important role in caring for patients.  

The COVID-19 pandemic reminded the country just how important the NHS really is. Staff worked incredibly long hours under huge pressure, treating patients while also delivering one of the biggest vaccination programmes the UK has ever seen. It was a difficult time, but it showed the dedication of NHS workers across the country.  

However, the NHS faces some big challenges today.  Waiting lists are still high in many areas, emergency departments are often under pressure, and an ageing population means more people need healthcare than ever before. Recruiting and keeping enough staff is another challenge, as demand continues to grow.  

Currently in real danger, under attack from those that want to privatise it, run it down and fragment it ; 

despite this, the NHS continues to adapt. Artificial intelligence is beginning to help doctors spot illnesses earlier, new medicines are being developed all the time and researchers are constantly finding better ways to treat patients.  

After 78 years, the NHS has seen enormous changes, but its original aim has never changed, to provide healthcare based on need, not on a person’s ability to pay  and by fixing social care, improving access, and protecting its future, we can ensure our health service thrives. 

The best way we can mark the 78th anniversary is to vow to remain true to the principles that underpinned the NHS from the beginning – treatment free from private companies and free at the point delivery. Now more than ever we need to fight for an NHS fit to work in and fit for purpose for another 78 years or more. and we must protect it from privatisation at all costs. 

The  NHS has sadly been systematically dismantled by both Conservative and Labour governments over four decades, with private US healthcare companies poised to feast on the carcass. The NHS was not given to us by the rich or powerful. It was won by struggle, built on the principle that healthcare is a right, not a privilege.  Every cut, every privatisation, is a betrayal. The fight now is to save what we  have  already paid for. 

The NHS holds a very special place in my heart, as I know it does for millions of people across our country. At some point in our lives, we have all needed its care, whether for ourselves, our children, our parents, or someone we love. 

The greatest gift of the NHS is knowing that, in our moments of illness, fear and vulnerability, we can receive care and treatment regardless of our income or background.  

Today, I celebrate this great institution and, most importantly, the incredible people behind it, the doctors, nurses, paramedics, carers, cleaners, porters, receptionists and many others who work tirelessly to care for us.  

This great institution only exists because of the wonderful staff of all nationalities that provide care from the cradle to the grave with empathy and compassion and without judgement or prejudice. 

 As the  Government  inevitably puts out celebratory tweets today remember  they  are privatising it and with American plutocrats turning their eyes on the NHS, it's more important than ever that we continue to defend it with all we've got, Now, more than ever, it is vital that we stand together to defend our NHS from those who seek to underine its core values. 

Thank you  NHS  from  the  bottom  of my  heart for being there for me, my family and our communities. I deeply  appreciate you and when  the  Government inevitably put out celebratory tweets today I remember  they  are privatising it and with American plutocrats turning their eyes on the NHS. It's more important than ever that we continue to defend you  with all we've got.

Now, more than ever, it is vital that we stand together to defend you from those who seek to undermine its core values. elebrate you. Your  the best thing this country has ever created   and  you deserves so much better. 

Let's ensure  you  are  here to stay. Thank you to every staff member and volunteer who' with  skill and  dedication have  shaped our NHS - past, present and future. Built by Labour. Underfunded by the Tories. Targeted for privatisation by Reform. We must  keep fighting for an NHS that's free at the point of use, because healthcare should not depend on your bank balance.

A statue of Aneurin Bevan stands on  Queen's  Street in Cardiff, honouring his role in creating the service.

1000 days of “Israel’s” genocide in Gaza.

Yesterday marked a full 1,000 days since the war of genocide was  launched by the Israeli occupation forces on the Gaza Strip. Since October 7, 2023, in full view and hearing of the world an ethnic cleansing campaign, has been normalised, sanitised and laundered by the media class to subdue the public into acceptance. 

Israel's genocide has since  left Gaza in ruins, the Board of Peace falters, and Israel expands control of the besieged enclave, while continuing to violate the "ceasefire" in almost daily attacks.

There is no end in sight, as Israel's genocidal war in Palestine's Gaza goes on  and on. More than 2,700 families have been wiped out from the civil registry, over 90% of the enclave lies in ruins, and more than a million children are surviving on just one meal a day.

1,000 days of the open slaughter of innocent civilians, a 1,000 days of unbearable weight, and still, the world keeps turning as if nothing has been broken. What has been exposed is not only devastation, but the collapse of so many illusions about humanity, justice, and accountability, stripped bare in full view of everyone. 

According to official data in Gaza, the war of genocide over the 1,000 days has claimed the lives of more than 73,000 Palestinians, and injured more than 173,000 others, and civilians formed the vast majority of the victims, including 21,500 children and 12,500 women, representing 55% of the total.

In in addition to about 1,700 doctors and workers in the health sector, 300 civil defense personnel and municipality crews, and 262 journalists, many of whom were directly targeted while performing their work.

Researchers and medical journals such as The Lancet have said the actual numbers may be much higher,  potentially in the hundreds of thousands if counting indirect deaths.The impact the genocide had on Gaza’s health infrastructure and the rest of the enclave imposed significant limitations on the strip’s authorities , resulting in an undercount of casualties.

Since the announcement of the Trump plan in October 2025, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians. Thousands more still missing under the rubble, maimed, and an entire generation traumatized.  

Hundreds of doctors, nurses, and paramedics have been arrested, taken from the hands of their patients, and from operating rooms, leaving an already fragile healthcare system to collapse under continuous destruction. Without charges, without fair trials.

Dozens of them remain behind bars, detained for long months perhaps even years in painful silence. Over the past two years, testimonies have emerged from behind the walls. speaking of severe hunger, deliberate neglect, and mistreatment that amounts to torture. 

These are not just stories, but realities that have contributed to the deaths of at least 103 Palestinian prisoners, including five doctors from Gaza. Five who once saved the lives of others  And despite everything their names are still alive in our hearts, their absence is still deeply painful, and hope still lives on that they will return free, as they always were, lifesavers, not prisoners behind bars.

Every number is a human story: a child yearning for safety, a father struggling to protect his family, and communities clinging to hope amidst unspeakable suffering. Lives filled with displacement, killing, bombing, destruction, chaos, closed crossings, with the prevention of food, medicine, and water. 

Days of fear, of constant exhaustion, fatigue and uncertainty for countless families.I,000 days without stability.1,000 days of surviving, not living.Days of unbearable grief and endless waiting.1,000 days of longing to return home. 1,000 days of waiting for a morning without fear, a night without bombs, and a future  children deserve.

Many western governments, directly or indirectly supported Israel during these 1000 days. Complicity will need to be met with consequences! The Israeli occupation and states supporting it are reminded they bear full moral, legal, and historical responsibility for this profound humanitarian catastrophe. And history will not be kind to the bystanders, the deniers, or those who have enabled it. 

Today there are more graves than homes in Gaza. We have witnessed, and continue to witness, the erasure of a people in the most  brutal  genocide in modern times.Today the clock has not stopped, the souls are still being stolen, and justice feels like a dream.

And yet, even through this long darkness, something refuses to die: testimony, memory, and the simple insistence that these lives are not allowed to be forgotten or reduced to silence. Never forget! Never forgive! Keep speaking about this genocide.

Freedom is not a privilege reserved for some; it is a right that loses its meaning when it is denied to others. Our humanity is bound together.The chains placed on one people weigh on us all, whether we choose to see them or not. Silence does not make us free; indifference does not make us innocent. 

Every human being deserves safety, dignity, and the chance to live in peace. Until every child can sleep without fear, every family can live with dignity, and every people can determine their own future, the work of freedom remains unfinished. No one is truly free while another people live under siege, occupation, fear, or dispossession. So we speak, we remember, and we stand together. 

Free Palestine was never just a trend, it was a steadfast commitment and an unwavering goal. As friends and fellow human beings, please do not forget Gaza. Continue to raise your voices for peace, justice, human dignity, and the protection of civilians everywhere.Whatever our origins, our shared humanity should unite us. 

To this day, Palestinians continue to be massacred by an apartheid regime. Ceasefire in name isn’t enough, we need a permanent end to this suffering. Incoming PM Andy Burnham must  finally  an  end  to  the  arms trade wirh Israel and  as  sane time perpetrators must  be bought to justice. 

People in the UK are marking the 1,000th day of the ongoing genocide in Gaza this weekend.The milestone is being commemorated with rallies and silent marches across Europe, including a demonstration in Cardiff on Saturday, July 4th, organized by a coalition of faith, peace, and community groups.Free Palestine.  

July - .George Meredith (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909)

George Meredith  English novelist and poet of the Victorian era  was born in the busy naval town of Portsmouth on 12 February 1828,  the only child of Augustus Urmston Meredith and his wife Jane Eliza (née Macnamara). 

The name Meredith is Welsh, and he would describe himself as "half Irish and half Welsh" (on his mother's and father's sides, respectively). He was proud of his Welsh origins, and such pride is evident in his novels. His biographer Lionel Stevenson explains that Meredith's paternal grandfather, Melchizedek, would sometimes "boast eloquently of his princely forebears", but "between his immediate forebears and the legendary Welsh princes of seven centuries before, the history of the family remains obscure."

He attended St Paul’s School, Southsea, before he was sent to a boarding school in Suffolk. From 1842 onwards he attended the School of the Moravian Fathers in Neuwied, near Koblenz, on the Rhine. 

In her biographical entry for George Meredith in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Margaret Harris speculates that it may have been the influence of his time at Neuwied which gave rise to his strong views on the need for women to be educated.  

In 1844 he returned to England and took articles with Richard Stephen Charnock, a London solicitor. However, Meredith had little interest in the law and soon began to follow his inclination towards a literary career. 

In 1849 whilst living in London, he met and married a young widow, Mary Ellen Nicolls, a contributor to the Monthly Observer.  After a long honeymoon travelling in Europe the couple settled in rooms at ‘The Limes’, Weybridge. At first the marriage appeared to be happy, as reflected in Meredith’s debut publication Poems (1851). 

However later, after the problems in his marriage came to a head, he tried to destroy all the privately published copies of this book. It was around this time Meredith decided to abandon his embryonic career in the law in favour of pursuing his literary ambition.  

The couple became estranged and lived apart for a while but they attempted to continue the marriage. They had a son, Arthur Gryffydh, in 1853 and moved to ‘Vine Cottage’, Shepperton, but by 1857 their relationship broke down completely and Mary Ellen left to join the painter Henry Wallis in Wales.  Meredith was an energetic man who often embarked on long walks with his friends. Following the breakdown of his marriage these took on a therapeutic role and among his walking companions were Algernon Swinburne and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. During the time he lived in Weybridge he met the Duff-Gordon family and it is possible that Janet Duff-Gordon was the distraction mentioned in Meredith’s poems in Modern Love (1862).  

One of his most renowned works, "Modern Love," intricately depicts the complexities and breakdown of romantic relationships, establishing Meredith's reputation as a poignant observer of human emotion. 

Meredith and his son Arthur moved to ‘Copsham Cottage’, Esher, in 1859. Mary Ellen died in 1861 and by 1864 he had found love again, remarried and settled into matrimonial life in Surrey. There he produced a number of novels and works of poetry, often drawing on the natural world. He had limited financial success, having to supplement his career working as a reader for a publishing establishmentas as a war correspondent and as a contributor to and editor of literary journals. 

He was also a skilful essayist and lecturer, and his ‘Essay on Comedy’ was regarded as a brilliant and insightful piece of work. George Meredith is best known for his novels exploring social issues and psychological realism. His works often engage with themes of marriage, class, and the role of women in society. 

Additionally Meredith composed  a series of mythological poems that celebrate humanity's connection to nature, emphasizing a nearly pagan faith in the natural world and its regenerative powers.  

Meredith's poetry, published across six volumes from 1862 to 1901, showcases approximately 130 poems that delve into themes of renewal, the cycle of life, and the interplay between man and nature. His style is noted for its intensity and complexity, often employing rich metaphors and intricate rhythms that invite deeper interpretation. 

Critics have recognized his work for its innovative qualities, drawing comparisons to contemporaries like Gerard Manley Hopkins. Despite this, much of Meredith's poetry has remained underappreciated, with calls for a reevaluation of its artistic and philosophical depth.  

Ultimately, Meredith's exploration of nature reflects a belief that understanding and communion with the natural world can lead to spiritual and emotional renewal, a theme that resonates throughout his poetic oeuvre. This multifaceted relationship with both love and nature positions Meredith as a pivotal figure in the landscape of late Victorian literature.

While his poetry never achieved the widespread popularity of his novels, it has been increasingly recognized for its unique voice and contribution to 19th-century poetics.  His focus on individual consciousness and the complexities of human relationships paved the way for the development of modernist literature in the 20th century.

He published eighteen novels between 1856 and his death in 1909 and, although many had limited commercial and critical success,The Egoist (1879) and Diana of the Crossways (1885) were well received. he also produced such well known works as The Lark Ascending.

Nearly three decades later on the eve of the First World War, Ralph Vaughan Williams read George Meredith’s poem The Lark Ascending and heard, in his mind’s ear, this “Romance for violin and orchestra”. Then, like thousands of others, he laid music aside to serve in France. The Lark Ascending was finally premiered in 1921 at Queen’s Hall, London by the violinist Marie Hall and the conductor Adrian Boult.  

It’s something unique – a virtuoso showpiece without a trace of superficial display. Poetry, purity and expressive beauty are all. Against a serene orchestral landscape, the solo violin becomes the bird, its song, and the spirit of Meredith’s poem:  

He rises and begins to round, 

He drops the silver chain of sound 

Of many links without a break, 

In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake…

For the literary critics of the future, Meredith's is work was often considered difficult to read, something that may have prevented him becoming the force that Charles Dickens enjoyed in the 20th Century. 

It wasn’t until 1885 that he achieved his first real measure of success with his popular novel Diana of the Crossways. 

However, his new found success came at a time of tragedy as his second wife, Marie, died of cancer shortly after publication. George Meredith’s own health was also beginning to fail. He had been fond of walking throughout his life but in middle age had contracted a muscle ataxia that was slowly beginning to take away his mobility. 

He continued to write but did not produce anything as successful as Diana of the Crossways, though his literary reputation grew and he was respected as one of the leading writers of the time, often compared favorably to Thomas Hardy and Gustave Flaubert. 

By inclination Meredith was a Liberal. He appears to have had some involvement in the local Liberal Association, when on the 30 March 1904, he wrote a letter to Mrs A.E. Fletcher of the Dorking Women’s Liberal Association that demonstrated his views on the equality of women and his support for the cause of women’s suffrage:  “At this present time Women need encouragement to look upon affairs of national interest, and men should do their part in helping them to state publically what has been confined to the domestic circle – consequently a wasted force. That it can be a force men are beginning to feel.” 

On 1 November 1906 Meredith wrote a lengthy letter (extracted below), to the editor of the Times on the subject of the increased militancy amongst female campaigners for suffrage:  “Sir, Women, and for this they incur our severe disapprobation, are excitable. They desire to have the suffrage; to that end they storm the House of Commons and clamour for the right to assist in voting for members of the august Assembly. It was unwise on their part; a breach in good manners, an error of judgement, proof that they have not yet learnt how to deal with men. For until men have been well shaken at home, and taught that woman is a force to be reckoned with, they will not only resolutely bar the fortress they hold against feminine assailants, they will punish offenders sharply.” 

It is clear that Meredith’s writing was held in high regard and was even recognised by militant suffrage campaigners (even though he opposed militancy as a tactic) as crucial in building support for the women’s campaign for the vote. Following the arrest of fifty suffrage protesters, including Emmeline Pankhurst, at a demonstration in the House of Commons during February 1908, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) held a Women’s Parliament.

The Times reported on 13 February 1908 that the sessions were held and decisions reached and it is interesting that the members present decided to send birthday greetings to George Meredith, in acknowledgement that “many ladies engaged in literary pursuits were among the prisoners. It was decided to send a birthday greeting to Mr George Meredith and an expression of gratitude for his lifetime championship of the women’s cause.”  

Meredith’s influence was not only significant to the national campaign for suffrage but his endorsement was important to local campaigners too. During the last few months of his life Meredith continued to give the Women’s Suffrage campaign support and encouragement. 

On 4 March 1909, the Times reported that a letter from George Meredith was read at a women’s suffrage “At Home” meeting, held in Mickleham. The newspaper’s correspondent commented that Meredith advised seekers of votes for women to follow the example of Mrs Fawcett and Mrs Garrett Anderson “who preserved the rule of good manners and understood how the cause was to be won. The combative suffragists played the enemy’s game. I hold that in spite of much to be said in opposition the exercise of the vote will gradually enlarge the scope of women’s minds. Men who would confine them to the domestic circle are constantly complaining of their narrowness. Women have to contend with illogical creatures. The vote will come in time and for a time there is likely to be a swamping of Liberalism and a strengthening of ecclesiastical pretentions that will pass with the enlargement of women’s minds in a new atmosphere.”  

Meredith, together with a number of prominent men in the political, scientific, literary, artistic, theological and sporting spheres, signed a “Declaration by men in support of women’s suffrage”. 

The petitioners were listed in the Times (23 March 1909) and had among them some notable Surrey figures including Gerald Balfour, Sir William Chance, Wilmot P Herringham, Sir Robert Hunter, David Lloyd George, J.M. Barrie, Edwin Lutyens, Halsey Ralph Riccardo, Henry Holliday, K.J. Key (late captain of Surrey Cricket Club), and the publisher, T. Fisher Unwin.  Image of George Meredith in his donkey ‘chaise’, with his dog, Sandy, nd (from J.A. Hammerton, 

After a brief illness, due to contracting a chill during an outing in his donkey cart on 14 May 1909, George Meredith died at Box Hill. His death was announced in the Times on the 19 May. A longer article about Meredith was published in the same issue.

The following day the front page of Common Cause (the official magazine of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, NUWSS), carried the news of his death and a tribute to him (20 May 1909):  “George Meredith is dead. The news dwarfs all other. No one has a deeper influence on the thought of the present century than he, and quite peculiarly this thought, affecting ideals of womanhood, has helped on women to freer expression. Not even Mill has done so much, because Mill lacked the two supreme resources of poetic imagination and the comic spirit. Through youthful enthusiasm for Meredith many men have been led to see male prerogative in its ugly nakedness; through sweetening laughter, they have been helped to abandon it. And women, with loyalty and courage shewn them as womanly virtues, have felt their lives enlarged and raised. The petals of his wild cherry are snowing down, but they will come again next year, and in the hearts and minds of English people his work will live. George Meredith is not dead.”  

The Times reported Meredith’s funeral in Dorking and the subsequent memorial service at Westminster Abbey in great detail on the 24 May 1909. The correspondent noted that amongst the wreaths was one from the NUWSS carrying the words “In grateful remembrance. True poets and true women have the native sense of the divineness of what to the world seems gross material substance”. 

Mrs Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the Leatherhead Liberal Association and the Leatherhead Women’s Liberal Association also sent wreaths. Following cremation at Woking Crematorium, his ashes were laid to rest beside his wife, Marie, in Dorking cemetery.  

On the 24 May 1909 at the AGM of the Reigate and Redhill Women’s Suffrage Society, Margaret Crosfield spoke of the great loss sustained by suffragists as a result of the death of one of the movements’ famous advocates, the Surrey resident and novelist, George Meredith.

As we step into the warm and vibrant days of July, let's celebrate its beauty with the evocative words of George Meredith. Here in his enchanting poem July, Meredith  sings the praises of this warm summer month. 

George Meredith -July

Blue July, bright July, 

Month of storms and gorgeous blue; 

Violet lightnings o’er thy sky, 

Heavy falls of drenching dew; 

Summer crown! o’er glen and glade 

Shrinking hyacinths in their shade; 

I welcome thee with all thy pride, 

I love thee like an Eastern bride. 

Though all the singing days are done 

As in those climes that clasp the sun; 

Though the cuckoo in his throat 

Leaves to the dove his last twin note; 

Come to me with thy lustrous eye, 

Golden-dawning oriently, 

Come with all thy shining blooms, 

Thy rich red rose and rolling glooms. 

Though the cuckoo doth but sing ‘cuk, cuk,’ 

And the dove alone doth coo; 

Though the cushat spins her coo-r-roo, r-r-roo – 

To the cuckoo’s halting ‘cuk.’  

Sweet July, warm July! 

Month when mosses near the stream, 

Soft green mosses thick and shy, 

Are a rapture and a dream. 

Summer Queen! whose foot the fern 

Fades beneath while chestnuts burn; 

I welcome thee with thy fierce love, 

Gloom below and gleam above. 

Though all the forest trees hang dumb, 

With dense leafiness o’ercome; 

Though the nightingale and thrush, 

Pipe not from the bough or bush; 

Come to me with thy lustrous eye, 

Azure-melting westerly, 

The raptures of thy face unfold, 

And welcome in thy robes of gold! 

Tho’ the nightingale broods—

’sweet-chuck-sweet’ – 

And the ouzel flutes so chill, 

Tho’ the throstle gives but one shrilly trill 

To the nightingale’s ‘sweet-sweet.’     

© 𝐷𝑒𝑙𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑢𝑚 by Yoksel Zok  

Honouring Willem Arondeus, Dutch artist, author, and gay anti-Nazi resistance fighter (22 August 1894 – 1 July 1943) : "Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards."

Artist and author Willem Johan Cornelis Arondéus Willem Arondeus, an openly gay member of the Dutch Resistance to the Nazis involved in falsifying IDs for Jews was executed on July 1, 1943, along with 11 co-conspirators, for fire bombing the Amsterdam Office of Public Records .

Willem was  born on August 22, 1894 in Naarden, Netherlands.as the youngest of six siblings in Naarden, Amsterdam, His parents, Hendrik Cornelis Arondeus and Catharina Wilhelmina de Vries, designed costumes for the theater. From a young age, he was a talented artist and his parents encouraged his creativity, until he came out as homosexual at age 17. 

In a time when nearly all gay people were in the closet, Willem’s parents could not accept his orientation. Their rejection led Willem to leave home, and severe all contact with his family. That part of his story is, unfortunately, all too familiar to too many LGBT+ people even to this day.  

It would have been a lot worse, had Denmark not decriminalized homosexuality in 1811. Thanks to  Napoleon,  but restrictive rules still barred homosexuality in the early 20th century.   

In 1911, the beliefs of the ruling political parties led to the age of consent for homosexuality to be changed to 21 in the Netherlands . despite the age for heterosexuality remaining at 16. Despite the first gay bar opening its doors during this time, these restrictive age rulings, along with other laws against public indencency, were used to unfairly target gay men.  

But these rulings did not intimidate Arondeus. He refused to suppress his identity as a gay man.Picking up work where he could find it, Arondeus quickly learned, though, that persistent discrimination of LGBT citizens made life difficult. Alongside living in poverty, he also struggled to find housing due to his refusal to hide his sexuality. 

He began building a career for himself as an illustrator and painter, and in 1923, he was commissioned to paint a large mural for Rotterdam City Hall. In the early 1930s, he produced nine tapestries with the coat of arms of various Dutch munipicalities which still hang in Villa Welgelegen, an official building in Haarlem. 

He was commissioned to illustrate poetry books, as well as to designing posters and calendars.

However, he never had much success as a painter and was living in abject poverty. 

In 1932 to 1941, Arondéus had a relationship with Gerrit Jan Tijssen, a greengrocer from Apeldoorn. They lived together in Apeldoorn and later in Amsterdam. In 1941, Tijssen returned to Apeldoorn because Arondéus's resistance activities made it too dangerous to stay together in Amsterdam. They never met again.

In 1935 he decided that visual arts might not be for him, and turned to poetry and writing. This turned out to be a good move. In 1938 he published two novels, Het Uilenhuis ('The Owls House') and In de bloeiende Ramenas ('In the Blossoming Winter Radish'), which were both illustrated with his own designs.

and in 1939 he published his most famous and, by all accounts, his best work “The Tragedy of the Dream” which is a biography of the Dutch painter and political activist Matthijs Maris. 

And then  in 1940 the Nazis came, and his real work began. Upon their occupation of the Netherlands at the start of the 1940s, the Germans brought with them Paragraph 175. a law first introduced by Hitler in Germany in an effort to cleanse the country of homosexual activity. The ruling, which first began by expelling any gay and lesbian organizations in Germany, was revised to make homosexual activity between men punishable by imprisonment. Even the slightest bit of suggested evidence could send them behind bars, and as a result, over 100,000 German men were arrested and 50,000 were imprisoned.  

Further, over the course of the Nazi rule, it is estimated that between 5,000 and 15,000 gay men were sent to concentration camps. Marked by pink triangle badges, they were brutally abused; and many underwent experimental medical treatments aimed at curing their sexualities.   

 Concentration Camp Prisoners with Pink Triangle Identification

In realisation  of this dire threat, like many others, Willem Arondeus joined the Dutch resistance almost immediately and he intended to do whatever he could to protect members of the homosexual community as well as the Dutch Jews.

When the Nazis came to the Netherlands, they mostly took their time with their policies. There weren’t any immediate deportations, there were no strict curfews. They were trying a subtle approach to keep the Dutch from resisting. 

This mostly worked. Many of the Dutch were fooled into thinking the Nazis weren’t as bad as everyone was saying. But the Nazis didn’t hesitate when it came to criminalizing homosexuality. and in no doubt of his and others’ fate at the hands of the Nazis, Arondeus first published the underground resistance paper Brandarisbrief and then formed the Raad van Verzet (Resistance Council) with other artists. 

At this time, he would meet Frieda Belinfante, a cellist, conductor, and a gay Jewish woman.   

Frieda Belinfante

Frieda Belinfante Frieda had become the youngest woman in Europe to lead an orchestra at that time. By 1941, she had. put away her cello to conduct a campaign of resistance and defiance against the Nazi oppressors. Using their artistic talents, the group set to work producing forged documents for Jews and others who were wanted by the Gestapo. 

Their first problem was that the Dutch identity cards were some of the hardest to counterfeit in Europe. By trial and error and sheer will and audacity (and a rather large financial contribution by Harry Heineken the prominent Dutch brewery owner), they succeeded in producing adequate counterfeit papers using a printing press. They managed to produce around 70,000 false papers that helped to hide the hunted and persecuted.  

Problems started to arise when the Nazis began to check the corresponding duplicates in the records office. The Nazi occupation of the Netherlands were issuing identification papers (called persoonsbewijs) to all Dutch men and women. To ensure this system worked as best possible the Nazis used local records to keep track of the Dutch population. 

One record set they used were the Bevolkingregisters which are similar to a Census. These records are very important in Dutch Genealogy research as they give lots of information on the households as well as family relationships.

Arondeus and the others in the resistance movement realised the records office would have to be destroyed  Arondeus and the rest of his unit constructed their riskiest plan yet: they would blow up the facility, along with the hundreds of thousands of documents inside or all their work would be in vain.  

Frieda Belinfante, said that while both of them knew the danger that would come if they were caught, each knew it was necessary to carry out their mission. 

 “He said, ‘Do you think that we see the end of this war?’ and I said ‘I don’t think so’ and he said ‘I don’t think so either,’” Belinfante recalled in a conversation the two had about the danger of their plan. “And then he said ‘Do you mind?’, and I said ‘No I don’t’, and he said ‘I don’t either.’”  

On March 26th, 1943, a group from the Dutch Resistance Movement led by Arondeus, entered the Registration building in Amsterdam disguised as Dutch policemen. They chose a late hour while the Registration Office was empty, so no innocent people would be harmed, and drugged the guards. They destroyed as many papers as they could and planted a bomb in the building.[

The next morning on March 27th, the bomb exploded and most of the building was destroyed. More than 800,000 identity cards were burned in the explosion. This operation saved the lives of many people and brought the Dutch Resistance Movement a symbolic victory over the Nazi occupation.

Amsterdam civil registry office 

But because Arondeus and his people managed to escape that night, the Nazis promised a large sum of money to anyone who could uncover the culprits. 

On April 1st, an anonymous source informed the Nazis about the Dutch Resistance Movement’s involvement, and Arondeus was arrested. He took full responsibility for bombing the Registration Office and refused to give up his comrades’ names. However, the Nazis found his notebook, which included all the names of the participants in the operation. 

ome of them managed to escape, but Arondeus and twelve more members of the Dutch Resistance Movement  including two other gay men , on July 1, 1943 were taken from their cells at six o'clock in the morning and handcuffed two by two. At the execution site in the Overveen dunes, still handcuffed to one another and without blindfolds, they were shot dead with machine guns. Frieda Belinfante herseld managed to escape execution. 

In the final days before his execution at the hands of the Nazi party, Willem Arondeus asked his lawyer Laura Mazirel  “ “Let it be known  that gays are not cowards.”

Shortly after the liberation, their shared graves was found, in  a messy pit one meter dee, and in the autumn of 1945, they were reburied at the Honorary Cemetery in Bloemendaal. On Willem Arondéus's gravestone it reads: Such a death surpasses life. nelis Arondéus *

Though the bombing of the Amsterdam registry building was widely regarded after the Holocaust as a lifesaving moment in history, education about the heroic moment omitted Arondeus’ leadership due to the fact that he was a gay man.  

While his family did receive a medal of honor for his sacrifices in the years following his death, homophobia that persisted throughout the 1950s and 1960s prevented LGBT war heroes like Arondeus from getting the recognition they deserved. This went against Arondeus’ final message to his lawyer for the public to be informed of LGBT participation in the mission.  

It was only in 1984 that the Dutch government posthumously awarded  he and the others who took part in the raid on the population registery, were awarded the Resistance Memorial Cross in 1984, some 40 years after the war had ended. It is speculated that this delay in recognising him was due to his sexuality.  In 1986, he was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.  

Despite this recognition, and his last words, Willem’s sexuality was not recognized until  a TV documentary in 1990 that it become known to the general public that Arondeus, was gay. and the Dutch public finally learned the true extent of his bravery forever cementing his efforts as a symbol of heroism in the LGBT community for years to come. 

Frieda Belinfante’s contribution to the resistance was officially recognized by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1994. She died one year later, at 90 years old. 

“He was a great hero who was most willing to give his life for the cause,” Belinfante said. "Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards." 

In 2023, Arondéus was a character in A Small Light, a biographical World War II television drama miniseries and his story was featured in a documentary Willem and Frida - Defying Nazis by Stephen Fry. 

Honey Bee

 

The  following poem inspired  by song a dear friend  sent  me by  Olivia Rodrigo   called  honeybee

Honey Bee

I witness the delicate wings of a honey bee

Among flowers, nectar rich with goodness, 

Sweet  presence more precious than gold 

Pollen so rich with sucrosness noursishment.

Busy bee never at rest, blossom to blossom 

Pollinating plants that sustain us every day,

Honey drizzling releasing golden dreams

Succulently waking eyes with utter delight.

One of nature’s best, but in steep decline 

As we continue to destroy her habitats .

And allow toxic pesticides to.destroy  

Their fight for life, is our fight for life.

Gwenyn melyn blesses us every hour  

Now is the time to reward and treasure, 

Scatter wildflower seeds to protect her

Allow her sweetness to ripen our hearts.

Celebrating the life of Working class Chilean communist poet and novelist, Nicomedes Guzmán (June 25, 1914 – June 26, 1964)

Working class Chilean communist poet and novelist, Nicomedes Guzmán, pseudonym of Óscar Vásquez Guzmán, was born in  the Club Hípico neighborhood  of Santiago, Chile on June 25, 1914, was one of the most prominent members of the Chilean literary Generation of 1938, a literary and publishing generation born out of the socio-political movements that in 1938 collectively brought a political organization, the Popular Front to power under President Pedro Aguirre Cerda. 

It is no coincidence that this president, proposing an unprecedented political method of  governing  through education, led a left-wing, transformational coalition with the strong support of artists and writers. Nicomedes Guzmán, Violeta Parra, and Volodia Tetelboim among othersworked tirelessly for the Popular Front and for Pedro Aguirre Cerda's rise to the presidency. The Chilean literary Generation of 1938,  was also  one of the proletarian movements that set the stage for the presidency of Salvador Allende. 

Of working-class origin, Guzmán became interested in literature as a child, reading the magazine "El Peneca". At a very young age he also decided to become a writer, and at 15 he managed to publish stories, poems, and drawings in this same magazine, under the pseudonym Ovaguz.  

His early novels were about what surrounded him and what he could see with his own eyes: his neighborhood, his family, his friends, and his neighbors. Therefore, reading him is a way to get to know the Santiago of yesteryear and, in particular, the lives of its poorest inhabitants.

He not only wrote about marginalization, poverty, and social injustice: he lived these realities and transformed them into literature. His works, marked a milestone in Chilean narrative for their profound portrayal of the most marginalized sectors of society. His work is extensive and varied, including novels, poetry and anthologies of deep human and social feeling.  

He was the son of Nicomedes Vásquez Arzola and Rosa Guzmán Acevedo.  Nicomedes Guzmán's real name was Oscar Nicomedes Vásquez Guzmán. He used his middle name and second surname as his artistic pseudonym as a way of honoring his father, and his mother.

His father held various jobs, including streetcar driver and occasionally ice cream vendor; his mother, a homemaker, supplemented the family income with occasional work as a domestic servant. 

In Los Hombres Obscura (The Dark Men )  from 1939 , he dedicates, his  novel to them.The novel tells the story of the lower social classes and their lives within a tenement building. It highlights the stark differences between the abusive wealthy and the most needy, those affected by the decisions of the ruling class. 

The novel has a significant ideological component, emerging from within the very society that has been marginalized, a society imbued with proletarian convictions, and is rich in political and ideological allusions.

According to Volodia Teitelboim (1916-2008) , this novel was also "the shot that signaled the start of a new era, a different stage of narrative in this Finisterre called Chile," a stage characterized by writers convinced that they wanted "to take the pulse of the people, to write in rhythm with their battered existences. They took the side of the discontented. They tried to be writers of the poor, of the rural and urban worker, of the miner, of the south and the north"

Nicomedes Guzmán's schooling was irregular and his education was largely self-taught, although he studied as an adult at the Federico Hanssen night school. He began his career as a typesetter and bookbinder's assistant, later working as a truck driver's assistant on Matucana Avenue in Santiago , a place with a vibrant, bohemian nightlife of a popular nature. 

He later worked as an assistant at a real estate agency in the heart of the Chilean capital. Thanks to the acclaim his first two works received, he was hired by the Department of Culture at the Ministry of Finance, along with Luis Sánchez Latorre .

He participated in the alliance of Chilean intellectuals created and led by Pablo Neruda, along with Pablo de Rokha. Guzmán was the author of the poetry book The Ashes and Dreams (1938) In the prologue to the book Pablo Neruda wrote: “Its whispering sweetness seems not to coexist with the scars that “Blood and Hope” imprinted on us, but it is a sign of greatness that the writer, who revealed to us the hell of the streets of Chile, has another mark of wandering delirium, dreams and ashes that add the infinite dimension of poetry.”  

He actively participated in both civic action and various areas of literature, such as writing, publishing, and printing. and of novels and stories that marked milestones in the Chilean literary tradition such as The Dark Men (1939) , Blood and Hope (1943) , Light Comes from the Sea (1951) and A Coin to the River and Other Stories (1954) and collaborations with various magazines, which helped him to conceive of literature from a broad perspective, as a set of practices that integrated illustration, typographic design, bookbinding and editing.  

His collaborations in this regard, which he carried out in the magazine El Peneca (1908-1960) , between 1931 and 1937, where, with the pseudonym " Ovaguz ", he published illustrations, sports chronicles and literary texts, marked an important milestone in his training because he was able to meet artists, such as Fidelicio Atria (1904-1965) , who influenced the development of his technical skills and his aesthetic notions.  

As a result of this knowledge, in 1934 he wrote, designed, illustrated and bound the book, unpublished until 2015, entitled Croquis del corazón (Sketch of the Heart ),  under the pseudonym Darío Octay as an ode to the love he felt for a  woman named  Lucía Salazar.

They married on June 6, 1936, in the Church of Lourdes, which at that time was undergoing the construction of a second building designed by architects Eduardo Costabal and Andrés Garafulic, with sculptor Lily Garafulic. 

The couple lived in the home of José Besa, where they also shared a home with Manuel Guerrero Rodríguez, a contemporary writer of Nicomedes Guzmán and father of Professor Manuel Guerrero Ceballos, who was murdered during the civil-military dictatorship by state agents along with José Manuel Parada and Santiago Nattino, an event known as the Degollados Case, which occurred in 1985.  With marriage came Lucía and Nicomedes' first child: Oscar Vásquez Salazar—who would later become a renowned journalist and writer

In their home on Germán Riesco Street, the couple had two more daughters, Ximena and Florencia. As the family grew, they acquired their own house in the newly established El Polígono neighborhood, inaugurated in 1939 south of San Pablo Avenue, at 730 La Acacias Street (later Carlos Pezoa Véliz). 

In this house, Nicomedes Guzmán would produce his best literary and editorial works and consolidate a value-based vision regarding the daily life of a population that, despite its social diversity, largely comprised the Chilean working class. This vision would position him as a leading figure and representative of the values ​​and identity of the Chilean people.  

In this house on Carlos Pezoa Véliz Street, in the heart of El Polígono, the book of poems Croquis del Corazón (Sketches of the Heart)  was kept in a chest by Lucía Salazar even after her 81-year relationship with Nicomedes Guzmán ended. This object of love, created for this beautiful family moment, saw the light of day in 2015 when the family decided to no longer consider it a private family heirloom, but rather a part of Chilean popular culture.    

The original is donated to the National Library, who restored and preserved it, and the Victorino Lainez Publishing Cooperative together with the Al Tiro Cultural Center of the El Polígono neighborhood of Quinta Normal jointly publish 1000 facsimile copies of this important example of national and communal literature.  

The El Polígono housing complex was built in 1939 as part of the public housing policies promoted by the Popular Front government under the presidency of Pedro Aguirre Cerda. Through the Caja de la Habitación Popular (Popular Housing Fund), the State purchased the land located around San Pablo and Barros Arana streets, which had previously been part of the "Chacra el Polígono" (El Polígono Farm). The name derives from the shooting range that operated on this land for military and sporting purposes. Adjacent to the range were also some tomato fields and a school (Medina and Solar, 2010). 

Prior to this state investment in the construction of a workers' housing complex, several plots of land belonging to these farms were purchased for the subdivision and construction of the Quidora housing complex around 1915. 

With this state investment, the El Polígono complex became part of the major public works projects undertaken by the Pedro Aguirre Cerda administration in Quinta Normal.  Nicomedes Guzmán came to live in one of the first houses built during the initial phase of the settlement's development. 

The El Polígono settlement features diverse housing types that converge within a single territorial unit. Between 1939 and 1942, 290 houses were built.

Some were detached with their own front gardens, while the majority consisted of a shared entrance and a common front patio that was later divided into four separate dwellings: two on the first floor and two on the second. These latter two were accessed via a single staircase that began in the shared patio. 

Then, between 1946 and 1949, construction began on 120 apartments with a total area of ​​56 square meters. The land located at the entrance to San Pablo Street remained undeveloped until the 1960s when the State decided to build educational establishments; during that entire period, the land was used as dirt fields for playing soccer.  

The convergence of a strong and centralized state development movement, the transversal political principles among the popular classes regarding prioritizing school education to promote the growth of the country, the effective application of public policies that allowed the working classes to solve certain basic needs, including housing, and the centrality of art within the creative possibilities of Chile, motivated the formation of artists, artisans and intellectuals in the El Polígono neighborhood in the various areas of knowledge, such as La Sonora Palacios, Guillermo Prado, Richard Rojas, Homero Bascuñán, Hirohito and his group, among others.    

Nicomedes Guzmán began a literary development from El Polígono that would soon lead him to work in the Department of Culture of the Ministry of Education and as an editor at Editorial Cultura. 

He also collaborated during the 1940s in the magazine En Viaje (1933-1973) , a media outlet of the State Railway Company, where he published texts under the pseudonym - which he had already used to sign Croquis del corazón - of "Darío Octay", which he devised as a tribute to the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío and the town of Puerto Octay.  

As an editor, he conceived collections such as La honda and Novelistas contemporáneos de América , both published by Ediciones Cultura, of which he was director. He also compiled anthologies of the work of Baldomero Lillo (1867-1923) , the short stories of Marta Brunet (1897-1967) , and the poetry and prose of Carlos Pezoa Véliz (1879-1908) , all published by Editorial Zig-Zag . 

It  was Nicomedes Guzmán's literary ability to portray the harsh reality of the popular classes at the beginning of the 20th century that led him to win the Santiago Municipal Literature Prize in 1944 with  Blood and Hope  his most autobiographical work.

We witness the narrative of a working-class child, Enrique Quilodrán, the son of a machinist and a laundress.Through his childlike eyes, he observes events not only within his family but also recounts the repressions of the time. At the beginning, he writes: “And we, the children of that era, were time itself, perpetually playing, mocking that life which, in its misery, became heroic.” 

Later: “Life shook us all. Some more than others. But, if we emerged triumphant in childhood, the games of adulthood rotted into apathy and discouragement.” 

The Quilodrán family lives in a tenement located at Mapocho 2480, corner of García Reyes, a place where Nicomedes Guzmán's family also lived approximately between 1918 and 1928. “Short, with a height betrayed by just a few two-story buildings, wrinkled, dusty, the neighborhood was like an old dog abandoned by its master… Over there, San Pablo Street. Here, the tram depot and the large workshops of the Electric Company”  (Guzmán, 1943). 

Throughout the narrative, the author describes the neighborhood (“the poor neighborhood was like a flower fallen in petals of mist”), the tenement's residents (“the prostitutes, the thieves, the evangelicals, all the workers”), the economic problems such as unemployment (“the capital seemed to tremble under the weight of miserable and hungry humanity”), and the sense of impending doom, among other aspects. 

On a personal level, the narrator's father, a streetcar worker and active union leader, suffers the brunt of the repression, thus framing the story in the 1920s, with the streetcar workers' strike, supported by the Chilean Workers' Federation, as its backdrop. 

After beginning his literary life in the Quinta Normal district, Nicomedes Guzmán, having recently gained a place in the literary field, met Violeta Parra through the renowned bookseller of those years, Rafael Hurtado. Parra, having recently arrived to live on Edison Street and later, after marrying railway worker Luis Cereceda, at the Cité de las Viudas on Andes Street with Lourdes, was also beginning in the 1930s the great work of dedicating her life to art, research, writing, and creation from Quinta Normal.  

Nicomedes Guzmán separated from Lucía Salazar during the 1950s, later beginning a relationship with psychologist and social worker Esther Josefina Panay Pérez, who also lived in Quinta Normal. hey had two children, and his daughter Olaya has dedicated much of her work in the literary world to rescuing and publishing her father's work, leading, among other projects, the publication of  "Estampas populares de Chile" (Popular Scenes of Chile).

Throughout his extensive career as a writer and editor, Nicomedes Guzmán dedicated himself to establishing a vision of work and social justice and to forging new professional paths that helped diversify the understanding of literature as a body of aesthetic content. 

He also championed the work of unpublished writers and promoted that of established authors, aiming to enrich national and Latin American literary production.The Municipality of San Miguel awarded him the National People's Prize in 1961.

As a writer, he created a vision of marginality that transcended stereotypical portrayals of the working class. His work, rooted in Marxism, imbued the world he narrated with a sense of hope and historical redemption, exploring the causes and consequences of inequalities in capitalist society.  

The themes of his literary work, centered on predominant social aspects of Chilean life at the time, emphasized social injustice, the exploitation of workers, the miserable life of the suburbs, moral degradation in poverty, and corruption in power.

For many years, Guzmán's literary production was described as "the Voice of the People," a definition based on the myth that testimonial writing corresponds to the faithful transcription of a reality or a true event when, as has been shown, testimonial discourse is interfered with by the filter of memory and a subjectivity that elaborates and even invents what is supposedly real.  

However, Nicomedes Guzmán's complex writing poses a serious challenge to those addicted to rigid classifications. It is not the Voice of the People, but rather the Voice of Nicomedes Guzmán, a writer who models his imagined or reshaped stories from a familiar environment. 

The tools of his writing come from diverse literary sources, which did not conform to the hierarchy of "the canon" established by official culture, but rather to unsystematic chance encounters: the book he found in a bookstore, the book a friend lent him, the book recommended by the owner of a shop that sold old books or rented the latest ones. 

These chance encounters formed a cultural melting pot that created a heterogeneous intertextual field in which 19th-century Realism and Naturalism, the avant-garde, sentimental serials, and the cinema that, along with radio, ushered in mass culture in the 1940s, are all mixed together.  

In addition to its unsystematic nature, Guzmán's ideological position serves as the firm and explicit foundation of his entire work. His Marxist discourse aimed at social denunciation, political resistance and the utopia of equality as a counterpoint to the hegemonic nation. This political agenda conveys the hope for change in Chilean society.

At the beginning of the 1960s, Nicomedes Guzmán's health deteriorated rapidly due to complex physical and psychological factors, and he died in the El Polígono neighborhood at the age of 50 on June 26, 1964. His remains were laid in state at the Chilean Writers' Society, of which he was Director.  

Among the various photographs, paintings, pictures and works of art that to this day adorn the walls of Nicomedes Guzmán's house – which has been inhabited for several years by his son Darío Vásquez – the image of Nicomedes with Darío and Pablo Neruda at a barbecue held at the Nobel poet's house on the occasion of the visit of the Czechoslovakian football team to Chile in 1958, is one of the images that attracts the most attention within the space and that recalls the social and festive sense of the writer from Quinta Normal.      

Both sons, born and raised in the streets of the same town, El Polígono de Quinta Normal, have made a circumstantial contribution to keeping their father's memory alive. In fact, when the 100th anniversary of the writer's birth was commemorated in 2014, they carried out various activities to reconstruct his legacy, including the publication of a text, the naming of the town's library after him, the placement of a commemorative plaque on his house, and later the creation of the Nicomedes Guzmán Foundation.  Darío Vásquez still lives in the writer's house in the El Polígono neighborhood, preserving the legacy of his life and work. The son of Nicomedes Guzmán, a teacher by profession, has also been a major figure in the history of the Quinta Normal district, serving as a national leader of the Teachers' Union from the 1990s until the last union elections, when he handed over his position as General Secretary to the new generation. 

From the family home, he now safeguards the writer's legacy, as well as that of his mother, Lucía. 

The house, by his own choice, has undergone some changes to its original structure; it now has two floors, and the interior spaces have been significantly diversified.    

One of the most important works still in Nicomedes Guzmán's house is a portrait of him painted by the renowned Chilean artist Pedro Lobos. Family lore recounts that the writer, angered by Lobos's delay in finishing the painting, simply—in the midst of an argument—took it from his studio and brought it home, preventing the painter from completing and signing it. Today, this painting is the most valuable work created in honor of Nicomedes Guzmán that remains in the family home, a highly prized piece that has been separated from others which, by family wish, now form part of the Nicomedes Guzmán Archive at the National Library of Chile.   

The house of Carlos Pezoa Véliz in the El Polígono neighborhood continues to safeguard the old furniture, works, and stories of Nicomedes Guzmán, despite the political persecution that Nicomedes and his family experienced in their home in El Polígono with the promulgation of the "  Cursed Law,"  which was implemented during the governments of Gabriel González Videla and Carlos Ibáñez del Campo between 1948 and 1958. 

This law caused Nicomedes Guzmán to be under police surveillance at his home in Carlos Pezoa Véliz because of his membership in the Communist Party, as well as during the coup d'état and the subsequent civil-military dictatorship (1973-1990), which forced part of his family to be persecuted and exiled.  

The legacy of Nicomedes Guzmán continues to inspire  many. I will conclude this article by quoting Nicomedes Guzmán himself, regarding his vision of literature: “I believe that literature has a vital responsibility: to create a climate conducive to peace, to better understanding among men, in exchange for describing their struggles, telling their truths, even touching on what is corrosive in beings, confronting the aspects of human negation with virtues, particularly tenderness, which, in my understanding, is the most manly gift of man, the foundation of all acts of existence.”