Dear Child survivors of the Holocaust, We trust you and yours are well and that 2025 will evolve to be a good year for us all. This edition of Connections, brings some exciting news.
Final anthology for Child Survivors of the Holocaust:
Child Survivors of the Holocaust have now successfully created three anthologies. The first anthology, Heirloom, was a collection of your personal Holocaust stories. The second anthology “Silent No More” included your aftermath experience after arriving in Australia. “A Point in Time” created a valuable resource for educational purposes, locating your personal Holocaust stories in the country of your birth.
I felt the need to write about how my life turned out some 80 years after the Holocaust; I hope by sharing my achievements as well as the difficult times I managed to overcome, my words may bring comfort as well as support for the future. “
Each contribution should be about 3 A4 pages long, around 1,500 – 2,000 words. 2 photos may be submitted to support your contribution.
If you want to write less or a bit more, please go ahead. Your contribution will be proof read and copy edited just to make sure the presentation is as the publisher needs for the publication. You will be sent the final copy for your approval.
This anthology will be in book form and is planned to be available for purchase from the Melbourne Holocaust Museum library. All proceeds from the sale will go to the museum.
This fourth and final anthology will be titled “In the Sunset of My Days”. We are asking Child Survivors to write a letter to your family or a dear friend or any one you choose to share the wisdom you have gained as you reflect back over the past 80 years. Holocaust lived experience allows Child Survivors to see the world differently; the need is to write your message to those you feel would benefit from your words, including future generations and the world at large. You may wish to include a short version of your life story, so that the readers understand what happened to you and your family. It would be appreciated if you could offer hopeful and supportive words as well, for the generations to come
Your contribution could start with a few words like this: “Dear family members and future generations,
An event at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, launching the book with the contributors signing copies, is planned for September, 2025.
Please register your interest as soon as possible to viv.parry@bigpond.com or phone Viv 0419 819 131 All contributors will have until the 15th March to submit their story.
We look forward to hearing from you very soon,
Kindest regards,
Lena’s Desk: Holocaust survivor felt ‘intoxicated’ by freedom
In 1945, following the end of World War Two, 732 child survivors of the Holocaust were flown to Britain to help them recuperate from their ordeal. Among them was a traumatised Polish-born teenager, Abram Warszaw, who was the only survivor from his large extended family.
He was among a group of more than 150 youngsters flown by the RAF to Stoney Cross in Hampshire, before being taken to Wintershill Hall in Durley, near Southampton.
His grandson, Liron Velleman, has since visited the stately home to see where his grandfather and the others, who became known as the Southampton Boys, found kindness and safety.
Viv Parry & Lena Fiszman Co-Presidents
Abram, who later changed his name to Alec Ward, was born in Poland in 1927, enjoyed an ordinary childhood until war broke out and restrictions began to be imposed on Jewish families following the German invasion.
Mr Velleman said: “He spent his first couple of years in two ghettos and escaped with his younger brother.
“They lived on their own in haystacks for a number of months and eventually found a group of Jewish prisoners to join with because they had no food or anything else.”
The prisoners, who had been put to work on farms, were rounded up by the SS and Mr Ward’s younger brotherdeemed unfit for slave labour - was shot.
Over the course of six years, Mr Ward survived three slave labour camps and two concentrations camps. On 5 May 1945, he was among those liberated - naked and malnourished - from Mauthausen, Austria’s largest Nazi death camp.
The teenager was eventually brought to the UK under a government scheme to accept 1,000 children on two-year visas, although only 732 could be found who were fit enough to travel.
Mr Velleman said: “He was starting to physically emerge
from the trauma but, mentally, [he had] a long way to go.
“On 5 November 1945, he boarded the first plane of his life coming to Southampton, not knowing what England would have in store for him and not knowing the language.
“He arrived at the RAF base and they laid on a tea there on the airfield with cakes and oranges.
“He remembered, as soon as he arrived, he felt he was intoxicated with the freedom of being in England.
“He could walk where he wanted, he could ride his bicycle, and he felt everybody was extremely kind and helpful to him.”
The cohort of 128 boys and 28 girls who were taken to Wintershill became known as the Southampton Boys Mr Ward died in 2018, aged 91, and despite all he endured, he always implored others not to hate other people - a message which continues to be shared by his grandson.
Descendants of those children were reunited at the privately-owned stately home in 2023, brought together by the ‘45 Aid Society, a group set up to support the survivors and their families.
Mr Velleman said: “To walk through the fields of this house and feel this is where he would have run around and played football and rode his bike...
“Just seeing the joy and the happiness that we had over that weekend emulated some of the happiness our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents would have felt at that time.”
History Repeats
When I was a little girl of 9, we lived In a Hungarian town where 45% of the population was Jewish, we lived and practiced our Jewish holidays openly.
There was a Yeshiva and I went to Jewish school. The town doctor was Dr Heshkowitz who saved so many people, when antisemitism reared its ugly head. It started with peasant boys attacking religious boys who had no idea how to fight, my father who was very strong took those bullies on and fought back.
This was not well received and he was called to the local Court. It was alleged my father said that “Hungarian heads will line the road from our town to Budapest!”. My father, a fervent Hungarian, would have never said that! When he was accused of it in court my father asked the man “Did, I say that to you?” He said “No!” and named another. About six people denied having heard this from my father, so the case was dismissed. After a while another case was brought against my
father. I don’t know why he didn’t ask for advice from our local Rabbis. Instead, he wrote to the Belzer Rabbi, who advised him to stay and fight if the charge was correct but to run away if it was false.
So, we packed up and moved to Budapest where no one knew us. It’s also the reason why I’m the only survivor of my Jewish School.
Now 80 years later I have three sons. The youngest, Gary always resembled his grandfather in looks and actions. Who would have thought we would have to deal with
Antisemitism again?
Since the pro-Palestinian marches began, Gary has gone to the city protests with his Israeli flag.
On one occasion a man attacked him trying to wrestle his flag away. Gary gave him such a push that he fell on his
back.
Just last week after some of the Clergy said that “Antisemitism has no place in this country”, my son went to visit two Churches. Asking to speak to the head priest about how his church felt about antisemitism? The priest said that “In fact he was against it”. So, Gary asked the priest if he would display a message about antisemitism on the Notice board outside the Church.
One of the Clergy did just that and my son has had a lot of good feedback about his campaign. Gary intends to continue his stand against antisemitism.
If we stand by, we are weak, together we can achieve everything!
Israel in the Kimberley:
How the Top End nearly became a global Jewish hub
Just before the outbreak of World War II, a bold plan was proposed by a former Soviet official which could have saved tens of thousands of Jewish lives.
In 1939, the Freeland League for Jewish Territorial Colonisation identified the Kimberley in Western Australia as a place to resettle 75,000 European Jews fleeing rampant anti-Semitism.
The organisation sent Dr Isaac Steinberg, a man who had previously served as Attorney-General in Lenin’s Government, to lobby Australian governments to accept the scheme.
His pitch was to “open your gates to the persecuted Jewish people of Europe, and let them help transform the landscape into a productive agricultural hub”.
Dr Steinberg’s vision, complete with the land’s new inhabitants “writing Jewish poetry about kangaroos and laughing kookaburras”, was embraced enthusiastically by many and gained the support of the then-WA premier John Willcock.
‘Just before the German tanks rolled in’
Leon Gettler, author of An Unpromised Land, a book “You had government committees looking at it, you had people mobilising in support of it, you had the church campaigning for it, you had unions campaigning for it, businesspeople campaigning for it. It was a cause celebre at the time,” Mr Gettler said.
‘I never heard about that scheme’
This scheme was being considered during a period of conflict in the Kimberley.
Teddy Carlton is a traditional owner of a part of the land that was being considered as a new home for Jewish refugees.
Lenin’s former attorney-general Dr Isaac Steinberg on his trip to promote the immigration plan. (The Estate of Elizabeth Durack/www.elizabethdurack.
“[There were] all these massacres of Aboriginal people and this type of thing, so I don’t really know where these people who would have come would have fitted into this scenario if they came into contact with our mob,” he said.
Mr Carlton said he had never heard of the scheme that came so close to completely transforming parts of his land.
“I don’t think there was any consultation,” he said.
Miriuwung Gajerrong Corporation lawyer Dominique Reeves agreed that it was likely traditional owners were not adequately included in any processes that would have seen their land transformed into a new Jewish colony.
“You could say that Steinberg enthused Kim Durack to start off what we have today as the Ord Scheme.”
Descendant of the Durack family, Perpetua Durack Clancy, says Dr Steinberg made a good impression on her family, who offered more than 27,000 square kilometres of leasehold land to the Freehand League.
Ms Durack Clancy said her family supported the scheme going ahead.
“They [the Durack family] were ready for change. It had been a struggle for a long time and by 1939 the Depression that hit the Kimberley very heavily was just
emerging,” she said.
‘Never seen a bagel in Kununurra’
Ms Durack Clancy said the Kimberley region would be a very different place had the scheme gone ahead.
“Not only Australia but the whole of the Kimberley would have been different,” she said.
“The numbers were large, they were talking about bringing in a million. It would have bought in a completely different culture that any of the Aussies up there were familiar with — both the original inhabitants and the newcomers,” she said.
Warwick Austin said he thought the scheme would have been a success, but that it’s hard to envision now.
“I can’t imagine it now,” he said.
“I’ve never seen a bagel in Kununurra.”\
By Oliver Gordon
