You need go no further than the inner-city Sydney Jewish Museum to fathom the horror committed under the Nazi regime nearly 80 years ago.
Then there is the seminal Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance centre in Jerusalem, with its confronting and harrowing records, documents, testimonies and photographs affirming the pure evil of Nazism.
Both museums have been aptly invoked since NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet wished he hadn’t worn a Nazi uniform to his 21st birthday bash. He shares the opprobrium with Prince Harry, who was 20 when he dressed up in Nazi gear. Both have apologised, and as difficult as it is to understand why two educated young men ventured there, it’s no easier to digest the sentiment that we’ve become too woke, too humourless, too sensitive to the errors of people’s ways 20 years ago. Nothing changes the fact that more than six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.
If anything positive has come from these so-called follies, it is the gaze that has settled on pervasive, rising antisemitism and its attendant casualisation and normalisation, particularly as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday. But how to stop new generations being groomed in racist hate?
This month, just before the Perrottet fiasco, The Australian Jewish News condemned an auction in Queensland of Nazi memorabilia that included “Approx. 500 Jewish Atrocity Photos — Caution Very Disturbing”, which sold for a hefty $25,000.
Read the article by Deborah Cassrels in The Market Herald.