You Can Kill Each Other After I Leave: Refugees, Fascism, and Bloodshed in Greece

by Patrick Strickland

In the vein of George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and Martha Gellhorn's The View from the Ground, a remarkable work of reportage based on hundreds of hours on-the-ground reporting, that tells how the Greece's far right is trying to destroy the birthplace of democracy

In 2012, the far right Golden Dawn were building a significant street presence in Greece. Over the previous decade they had grown from a tiny group of neofascist brawlers to a formidable vigilante force responsible for multiples murders, street fights and shootings.

On the eve of the 2012 election one of their candidates said that the “knives will come out after the elections.” And the knives did come out. Golden Dawn became a significant parliamentary presence and used it as a platform to escalate their terror campaigns against migrants and leftist across the country. They also became an inspiration for far right groups across Europe and the Americas.

Strickland first arrived in Greece in 2015 to cover the European refugee crisis, eventually moving there in 2017, just as Golden Dawn were ramping up their campaign of terror. With an eye for journalistic detail that recalls Orwell’s reportage in Spain, Strickland traces the antecedents of Golden Dawn to the dark years of Nazi occupation and subsequent military dictatorship and looks at the post 2008 economic crisis that emboldened the far right.

It also introduces us to the resistance forces to the far right, taking us to the Greek islands where people rallied together to support the hundreds of thousands of refugees traveling across the Aegean Sea to the anarchist squats in Athens where activists took over abandoned buildings and opened them up to the refugees, a tactic they viewed as an anti-fascist alternative to dooming migrants to life in the squalid refugee camps.

You Can Kill Each Other After I Leave is an exemplary work of narrative nonfiction and journalism that provides an intimate portrait of the stories of migrants and activists resisting the growth of the far-right, as well as a vivid and shrewd analysis of the evolving political landscape in Greece and Europe.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

Published April 15, 2025

About the author

Patrick Strickland is a fiction writer and journalist from Texas. He's the author of several nonfiction books about borders and the far right and the short story collection A History of Heartache. He was a 2024 de Groot Foundation Writer of Note.

Reviews

[Glenn Harden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strickland tells the story of Golden Dawn and other Greek fascists and their hatred for immigrants. He also tells stories of the courage of immigrants, Greek journalists, and activists who resist evil at great personal cost. What struck me as an American was how religion was absent from both the Left and the Right in Greek politics, as well as how much of the fascist rhetoric of Golden Dawn directed against immigrants and Muslims is echoed in the current Republican party. Recommended for those with an interest in the rise of far right parties in Europe or the effects of European immigration policy on vulnerable people.

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

You Can Kill Each Other After I Leave is an important history about how the rise of racist violence in Europe helped the Golden Dawn party rise to prominence and the communities who fought against it. Golden Dawn’s rhetoric is terrifyingly familiar and shows what can happen when groups like this gain prominence in parliamentary politics and are enabled by police.

[JT Schultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humanizes refugees, unpacks how hate groups form, demonstrates a pressing issue globally. Good reporting, might deter someone from a beach vacation on the Greek islands

[Evgenia Chorou · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that manages narrate all the milestone events during those years around the topic. An important collection of stories and reporting that is a must-read by both non-Greek and Greek audiences.