The IHRA meets in Iasi, Romania

Pauline Rockman OAM and Sue Hampel OAM

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) is an inter-governmental body whose purpose is to place political and social leaders’ support behind the need for Holocaust education, remembrance and research both nationally and internationally. There are currently 31 member countries, as well as a range of permanent international partners including the United Nations and UNESCO.

We attended our third IHRA meeting in Iasi, Romania in November. Our delegation was headed by Dr Lauren Bain, Australia’s deputy Ambassador to Germany. Other attendees included Sydney University’s Professor Suzanne Rutland OAM and Dr André Oboler from the Online Hate Prevention Institute.

The meeting incorporated working groups and committees, plenary sessions and visits to two local synagogues and historic sites. We visited the site of the 1941 Iasi pogrom where at least 13,266 Jews were killed by Romanian authorities. The old police station, where some Jews were rounded up for the death trains while others were shot in courtyard, now houses a permanent photographic exhibition of the pogrom.

Sue Hampel and Suzanne Rutland delivered a presentation to the Education Working Group (EWG) about the Australian Holocaust survivor community, its role in the preservation of Holocaust memory, and the current state of Holocaust education in Australia’s school curricula.

The plenary tackled a wide range of issues, including a new Polish law that aims to punish those ‘who publicly and against the facts, accuse the Polish nation, or the Polish state, [of being] responsible [for] or complicit in Nazi crimes committed by the German Reich’ with a three-year prison sentence. There was significant concern from IHRA delegates that promulgating this law would stifle legitimate research into Polish involvement in atrocities during the Holocaust.

In another development, the IHRA welcomed the decision of the Czech government to close an industrial pig farm situated on the site of the former concentration camp for Roma at Lety u Pisku. This decision followed a decade-long protest. The IHRA has requested that the site be turned into a respectful and educational place of remembrance.

The next IHRA plenary meeting will be held in Geneva in June 2017.

Rising From the Ashes: Jewish Care’s Holocaust documentary series

Jewish Care Victoria launched its Holocaust documentary series, ‘Rising From the Ashes’, in commemoration of Yom Hashoah last year.

As Melbourne is home to the largest number of Holocaust survivors per capita outside Israel, Jewish Care believed it was crucial to share the survivors’ stories to ensure that we will never forget.

The series features interviews with Holocaust survivors who are Jewish Care clients, aged care residents, volunteers and donors.

They emotionally recount their loss of childhood, family, identity and freedom at the hands of Nazi Germany and its collaborators.

The videos aim to highlight how the trauma experienced by Holocaust survivors transcends generations and affects their children and grandchildren.

You can view the video series at www.youtube.com/ jewishcarevic. For more information about Jewish Care’s Holocaust Survivor Support Program phone 8517 5999, email info@jewishcare.org.au or visit www.jewishcare.org.au/hssp