GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
Brest Fortress Memorial, Belarus
ON SEPTEMBER 18, 1971, just over 30 years after the momentous if doomed defence of the Brest fortress by the Soviet Red Army against Nazi invaders, a memorial to its defenders was unveiled by the 19th-century star-shaped citadel that sits astride the Mukhavets River and faces the River Bug.
On the present boundary between Belarus and Poland, within the latter’s borders before WWII it served as one of its places of internment for socialist activists.
Two weeks after Nazi Germany’s treacherous attack on Poland on September 1, 1939, Joseph Stalin ordered the Red Army to advance west and secure territories up to the River Bug, including the Brest fortress. Permitted under the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of August 1939, it was a move designed to keep German armies at arm’s length.
CJ ATKINS commemorates one of the most dramatic moments in working-class history
Despite an over-sentimental narrative, MICHAL BONCZA applauds an ambitious drama about the Chinese rescue of British POWs in WWII
LYNNE WALSH tells the story of the extraordinary race against time to ensure London’s memorial to the International Brigades got built – as activists gather next week to celebrate the monument’s 40th anniversary
JOHN GREEN observes how Berlin’s transformation from socialist aspiration to imperial nostalgia mirrors Germany’s dangerous trajectory under Chancellor Merz — a BlackRock millionaire and anti-communist preparing for a new war with Russia



