Holocaust survivor Aaron Fresco at the opening of Queensland’s first Holocaust museum in Brisbane. (Lyndon Mechielsen)

Qld Holocaust museum opens in Brisbane to tell local stories

A Brisbane museum has opened to immortalise the personal stories of Queenslanders who suffered in the Holocaust.

The horrors of the Holocaust have been unveiled in a Brisbane museum that records the personal stories of Queenslanders who suffered under the brutal regime of Nazi Germany.

Of the 27,000 Holocaust survivors who migrated to Australia following World War II, about 200 made their way to Queensland.

These are the people whose first-hand filmed testimonies will be available for viewing in a museum and education centre which will eventually become a mobile resource, making its way around the state to educate Queenslanders.

Museum supporter and Holocaust survivor Edgar Gold, who was present at the opening, has personal memories of the infamous 1938 Kristallnacht.

That was the moment Nazi hostility to Jews exploded into an orgy of destruction, and his father Joseph who owned a chocolate making business became a target of the mob.

“I do remember hearing people outside our home yelling, ‘hang Joseph Gold, hang Joseph Gold’,’’ he recalled.

“I was a four-year-old boy – I could not understand why they would want to hurt my father.’’

Professor Gold, who went on to live an extraordinary life in Australia which encompassed becoming both a ship’s captain and a legal scholar, said his father lived through the Holocaust, but about 65 members of his extended family did not.

Read the article by Michael Madigan in The Courier Mail.