THE striped jumper and the child’s ceramic tea set are old and worn — things that could have been thrown out years ago. But stories of suffering, survival and heroism will be forever embedded in these humble objects, and curator Roslyn Sugarman of the Sydney Jewish Museum handles them with respect and care.
The jumper was worn for three years by a little Jewish boy called Leon Zettel while he was being hidden from the Nazis.
The tea set was played with by a little Jewish girl in Holland who died with her parents in the Holocaust but whose sister, Greta Matteman, born in 1942, survived and settled in Sydney with an uncle who adopted her after the war.
Both jumper and tea set will go on view in the museum’s new exhibition commemorating the 26,000 people officially recognised for selflessly acting to rescue Jewish people during the Holocaust.
While Nazis systematically hunted down individuals and entire families who went missing from their lists of Jewish people across Europe, there were individuals who resisted evil and sheltered Jews who were friends, neighbours or even complete strangers.
These acts of humanity and defiance came at a potentially fatal cost to the harbourers and their families at a time when denouncers could expect a handsome reward from the Nazis.
Read the full article by Elizabeth Fortescue at the Daily Telegraph.