I saw mention of this in the last couple of days, but the actual article actually appeared 2 years ago: describing the work of an elderly German woman, Irmela Mensah-Schramm, who goes around scraping off, painting over and otherwise destroying Nazi stickers, graffiti and general racist messages left about in public.

Nazis fuck off! This our town.

The woman, now 73, rocks.  She claims that she has painted over or ripped apart 75 800 racist messages by now, having done this for decades, but only starting to count in the last 10 years. Here she is in action:

Berlin

Dresden

Weimar

She does this despite the fact that she has been physically attacked, and is in true danger in certain situations. YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING! she insists, even if others try to play down the threat of the return of totalitarianism in the republic.

Most importantly, Mensah-Schramm has been a model for many others who are now trying to do the same, fighting expressions of neo-Nazis in the public sphere.

Here is a video that shows the people from #paintback, a group (Die Kulturellen Erben) loosely connected to a paint store for sprayers, at work – they reconfigure Nazi symbols into little artistic jokes and scenes that undermine the whole brown menace. They have now found many imitators in various European countries.

And speaking of a horrid echo of the past – I learn this morning that the women in ICE custody who are separated from their children have to wear a yellow bracelet. And it so happens, that almost 1500 of those children have disappeared into some administrative chaos and cannot be located – we will not know if there is ever to be reunification with the parents.

Hamburg

Berlin

Frankfurt

I think we all should pack a scraper if not a spray can, in case it comes in handy during our summer months of travel….

Photographs are from Berlin, Dresden and other German sites where  the old symbols raise their ugly heads and keep Mensah-Schramm busy.

Berlin