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One of the most sinister exhibits on display in the newly rebuilt Melbourne Holocaust Museum is a children’s book. The Poisonous Mushroom is a thin, illustrated volume laced with antisemitic tropes that the Nazis distributed through primary schools to incite children to hate Jews.
Holocaust survivor Henry Ekert tells two stories of what it was like growing up in Nazi-occupied Poland. The first is a murder he witnessed when a ghetto guard grabbed a little boy he was playing with and smashed his head against a brick wall. The second is about the bullying he continued to experience, at the hands of classmates and teachers, well after his town was liberated.
Holocaust survivors (from left) Sarah Saaroni, Irma Hanner, John Lamovie and Joe Szwarcberg at the museum reopening.Credit: Joe Armao
Ekert, 97, says he is worried about the rise in antisemitism in Australia since Hamas’ atrocities in southern Israel on October 7 and Israel’s deadly response in Gaza.
“It hasn’t made me afraid, because I refuse to be afraid,” he said on Wednesday. “It has made me angry. Very angry.
“When they [Hamas] crossed the border and did what they did, they committed what we have been speaking about: Never again.”
Ekert’s anger is chiefly directed at Hamas, an organisation that he says essentially ascribes to the same charter as Hitler: to wipe out Israel’s 9 million Jews.
He is also frustrated by what he says was the federal government’s slowness to unequivocally denounce antisemitism. “That is a very dangerous virus that can spread very quickly,” he said.
The government denies it was hesitant to condemn antisemitism. At Wednesday’s formal reopening of the Holocaust Museum, a project supported and funded by both sides of politics and some of Melbourne’s most prominent Jewish families, there was no equivocation.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Peter Dutton flew down from Canberra to speak at the opening. They made a show of shaking hands before they took the stage. Each carried a message of resolute support for Australia’s Jewish communities and condemnation of antisemitism. Both leaders framed today’s hatreds against the horrors of the Holocaust.
“Since the atrocities of the terrorist acts by Hamas on October 7, Jewish Australians have been bearing a pain they should have never had to bear again,” Albanese told a room of Holocaust survivors, philanthropists, community leaders and federal and state parliamentarians.
Holocaust survivor Abram Goldberg decried the emergence of virulent antisemitism in AustraliaCredit: Joe Armao
“You are feeling fear, anxious that the long shadows of the past have crept into the present. That should not be happening in a land that offered refuge then and embraces you now.
“As the conflict continues, antisemitism is on the rise. We will not let it find as much as a foothold here. Australia will always denounce it and reject it utterly, just as we do all forms of racism and prejudice.”
Reports of antisemitism have increased by almost 500 per cent since October 7, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. Incidents documented include death threats, verbal abuse, property damage and hateful chants and signs at rallies.
Albanese’s promise followed Dutton’s denouncement of “hate-filled mobs” marching through Western cities calling for the death of Jews and episodes of “obscene and unfathomable acts of antisemitism” in Australia
“We are witnessing an unmasking, a resurgence of the same hateful thoughts and behaviours which led to the Holocaust,” Dutton said.
Calling for “moral courage and moral clarity”, he quoted Russian war correspondent Vasily Grossman, who documented the Holocaust and explored the pervasive nature of antisemitism, unconstrained by time or place. “It can reside in the soul of an old man and in the games children play in the yard,” Grossman wrote.
The purpose of the museum, which was opened by Holocaust survivors in 1984 and is now housed in a stunningly reimagined, purpose-designed building, is to retell history so it is never relived. It tells the story of European Jewry before the Nazis came to power, the corrosive influence of antisemitism in pre-war Germany and the horrific consequences of Hitler’s Final Solution.
Auschwitz survivor Abram Goldberg is nearly 100 years old and still drops by the museum in Elsternwick to share the memories of his ordeal with school groups. He described it as a symbol of hope and guiding light for future generations.
Abram Goldberg at the reopening in Elsternwick.Credit: Joe Armao
He also spoke of the darkness enveloping Jewish communities today.
“At 99 years of age, I never thought we would be faced with such a virulent antisemitism in our wonderful country,” Goldberg said.
“We must stand up against it. Our voices need to be heard. A voice of reason needs to be heard. Let us be the voice of reason in these troubled times and stand up against antisemitism and racism whereever it rears its ugly head.”
Albanese noted that Melbourne had more Holocaust survivors than any city outside of Israel, per capita. This month, as the shock of Hamas’ rampage in southern Israel gave way to growing condemnation of the civilian death toll from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, 100 Holocaust survivors in Australia signed a collective statement decrying what they see as a return of the hatred they faced in Europe 80 years ago.
On Wednesday, as the formalities wrapped up and the politicians posed for pictures, Rosie Lew – a philanthropist and major donor to the museum – wondered how “the antisemitism genie can be put back in the bottle.” She urged police to use anti-vilification laws against all expressions of racial hatred.
Rabbi Ralph Genende, from the social services group Jewish Care, offered a prayer and poem for the rebuilt museum, a place he called a house of memory. He reflected that, even though his father’s entire family was murdered in the Holocaust, it is only now, after October 7, that he understands what his father must have felt.
“This has brought a level of consciousness that we just didn’t have before,” he said. “It is really quite a shadow over the community. This has been a new trauma for Jewish people worldwide, especially here in Australia. People are incredibly shaken and afraid, but there is defiance as well.”
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