Australian treasurer uses Holocaust Memorial Day to call on all good people to ‘take on hate wherever we see it’.
Josh Frydenberg has warned antisemitism is on the rise in Australia and the treasurer says there is an obligation on all good people to “take on hate wherever we see it”.
The treasurer told Melbourne radio station 3AW on Holocaust Memorial Day that given the age of survivors, memories were fading about “the darkest chapter in human history”.
Frydenberg said antisemitism was on the rise locally, and Holocaust denial was in evidence globally. He said these trends needed to be called out “and Holocaust education is part of the response”.
“We’ve seen antisemitic acts on the rise against kids in Victorian schools including, tragically, kids as young as five,” Frydenberg said on Wednesday.
“We’ve seen swastikas … daubed across businesses that happen to be owned by Jews or Jewish sites – or indeed on material for a theatre production of Anne Frank, of all things.
“Let’s not forget what US general Dwight Eisenhower said when he confronted those horrific images at the [concentration] camps in 1945 as part of the allied forces – he said there would come a day when people would deny the Holocaust ever happened.
“I’m afraid there is a rise in historical revisionism – we saw Iran, for example, holding a conference denying the Holocaust ever took place, and therefore it is incumbent on all good people, Jewish and non-Jewish across the world, to place an emphasis on Holocaust remembrance but also Holocaust education and genocides more broadly whether it is in Darfur, or Rwanda or Cambodia – we need to promote tolerance and diversity and take on hate wherever we see it.”
Read the article by Katharine Murphy in The Guardian.