Moshe Fiszman was one of only three people from his 200-strong Jewish family to survive the Holocaust. And now he wants to educate one of Australia’s most famous lawyers about the crimes of the Nazis.
Julian Burnside has agreed to meet with Holocaust survivors including Mr Fiszman after he was condemned for sharing a picture on Twitter of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton dressed as a Nazi.
Mr Burnside, a prominent barrister, has apologised to anyone who was offended by the picture he retweeted but told The Australian he still did not regret the Dutton-Nazi photo he shared.
“I did not mention the Holocaust. My concern is to remind people that the way the Nazis thought, and in particular the way they distorted public opinion to encourage fear and hatred of Jews, is worth remembering these days,” he said.
“I am sorry to have upset people who thought, mistakenly, that I was referring to the Holocaust in my retweet. I was not.”
Mr Burnside said that he was troubled that there was “so much attention to the misunderstanding” and not enough attention to what he called the “real danger associated with the Peter Dutton style of thinking.”
Mr Burnside said it was “common courtesy” and a wish to meet people who remember the lead-up to the Holocaust that drove him to accept Jewish group the Anti-Defamation Commission’s invitation to meet survivors like Mr Fizsman.
Read the article by Richard Ferguson in The Australian (subscription required).