Australia and the Holocaust: A Koori Perspective by Gary Foley
Australia and the Holocaust: A Koori Perspective
In a way these people were perhaps unconsciously repaying the gesture of solidarity and empathy extended years before by William Cooper and his intrepid band of Koori resistance activists.
On December 6, 1938, a fierce-gazed Indigenous man from the Murray River began a march from Southampton Street Footscray to make a simple demand for justice at government offices at 419-425 Collins Street, Melbourne. But this wasn’t a protest to defend Aborigines. It was a protest to defend Jews. And it wasn’t against a state government or Federal government. It was the German Government.
The protest was led by William Cooper. And 75 years after the event, it’s now clear that it was the only one of its kind. It’s something that didn’t happen in London, or in Paris or even in New York. It happened in Melbourne, organised by people who weren’t even citizens in their own country.
On that day, towards the end of his life, William Cooper stood up for the Jews of Europe. But as you’ll learn, it was only one of many astounding acts of justice this man made, even in his last years.
Who was William Cooper?
William Cooper was an Aboriginal. An activist. A unionist. A devout, Bible-reading, church-going, hymn-singing Christian.
Through his life, he worked as a shearer, a writer, a public speaker and, by the time he died in 1941, a political leader who could successfully demand a face-to-face meeting with the Prime Minister. As a man in his 70s, he started Australia’s first indigenous justice movement – the Australian Aborigines’ League. A movement which, long after his own death, would lead to the famous 1967 referendum.
But this was no communist radical. William Cooper was a Christian who believed the best thing that had happened for Australia’s first peoples was the Christian missions. He would argue passionately, often from the Bible, that Aboriginals ought to be treated as equal citizens in this country.
Once you learn where William Cooper came from, and how he came to stand up to injustice, you’ll wonder why you hadn’t heard of him before. But to begin, take a closer look at the day he challenged the Third Reich.
The March Against Tyranny
It was with his friends from the Australian Aborigines’ League that Cooper resolved to stand up to Hitler. It followed the night of “broken glass” on 9–10 November, 1938. In that terrifying 24 hours, Adolf Hitler’s brown shirts, the Sturmabteilung, rampaged through the streets of Germany looting, burning and smashing Jewish stores, buildings and synagogues. In just a few hours, nearly 100 Jews were killed and approximately 30,000 incarcerated in concentration camps.
Across the country, Australians were stunned as they read the stories in their newspapers. But Cooper stood up, gathered his Indigenous friends and family from Fitzory and Footscray, and they walked. Mind you, one of the reasons they walked was they had no money. In fact, Cooper was raising several grandkids in his home, and they didn’t even have electricity or gas. He’d rather spend it on ink, paper and stamps for his work for the Australian Aborigines’ League.
They arrived at the imposing stone building and climbed the stairs. He demanded a meeting with Doctor Drechsler, the General Consul of the Reichs Consulat – to speak against the Nazi mistreatment of Jews that had begun on Kristallnacht a few weeks before. But when they got to the door of the Reichs Consulate, the Nazi administration wouldn’t let them in.
Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the world’s leading Holocaust research centre, says that, indeed, this protest was the only one of it’s kind in the world.
How did this happen? Why was it that – of all minority groups who could have stood up for the Jews in the 1930s – it was an Aboriginal man from one of the smallest tribes who made a stand? What drove this man, who could have been spending his twilight years fishing for Murray Cod in the Barmah Forest, to become a man who meddled in matters of state? What gave him the temerity to speak against the German Reich?
William Cooper (Aboriginal Australian) – Wikipedia
William Cooper (Aboriginal Australian) – Wikipedia
Lore Zusman was born in Königsberg 90 years ago. Here are her memories of the Königsberg Synagogue, Kristallnacht and a book presented to her mother after the synagogue was destroyed on Kristallnacht in 1938. Königsberg / Kaliningrad KehilaLink with links to the synagogue and Kristallnacht. Hear Erika Sternberg’s story on Kristallnacht in Breslau. Click on her image. Commemoration in Perth – 9 November 2016 Just received: An email from Susan Taube of the USHHM I was only 12 years old when the Nazis ransacked Jewish homes and buildings in my neighborhood on Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass.” They took my father away to Buchenwald. My mother, sister, and I didn’t know if we would ever see him again. Our front door was smashed, our books torn apart, our dishes shattered. And with my father gone, we were left to pick up the pieces. This week marks the 78th anniversary of that terrible
Reprinted from The Jerusalem Post By RICHARD SHAVEI-TZION (My wife Jill’s cousin) 1 January 2015 Remembrance and Renewal How a song survived the Holocaust, traveled around the world and returned to the city of its birth. The Ramatayim Men’s Choir of Jerusalem.. (photo credit:JURGEN ALBRECHT) The 10 Tevet fast is designated as a “general Kaddish day” for those whose relatives died in the Holocaust and whose date of death is unknown. But it is not only people who disappeared without a trace in the Holocaust; many of their magnificent achievements across the gamut of human endeavor were lost to humanity. One of the great accomplishments of German and other European communities destroyed in the conflagration of World War II was the magnificent performance of Jewish liturgical music composed in the 19th and 20th centuries.Fortunately, unlike great works of visual art, music can be written and copied.Thus, although great composers, cantors and choristers were murdered and
A short documentary conversation between Uncle Boydie (Alf Turner) – grandson of Indigenous activist William Cooper, and Moishe Fiszman – a Holocaust survivor …
This movie was made in Australia in 2017. It is also now part of the USHMM’s (Washington) collection.
Watch “The Ties that Bind” from the Jewish Holocaust Centre | Hero Town
At Hero Town, it is our utmost priority to empower people to stand up in the face of adversity and injustice. It was our immense honour, then, that we were invited to the premiere of a documentary directed by Viv Parry titled Ties that Bind: From Auschwitz to Cummeragunja. We spent the full day at the Jewish Holocaust Centre and we left feeling deeply affected, saddened at the tragedy but also awed at the tales of survival, heroism, and resilience that we were invited to share.
A month after I met Alli Bak Itzkowitz for the first time, she passed away.
Alli was my mother Raele (Ray) Zeldin Rabinowitz’s first cousin.
They never met!
When Alli and I met in North Dallas in July, we shared stories, laughed, held hands and exchanged Yiddish rhymes
Here are photos from my visit:
A family dinner held on 20 July 2017
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Part of the Zeldin family tree that Marny printed.
Alli and her son Gene
Videos
From my previous post
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Meet Alli Bak Itzkowitz
A young Alli
Here is my relationship chart to Alli, my mother’s first cousin and the last of her ZELDIN generation. They never met.
Allis’ paternal Bak grandparents – Leib and Naomi
Alli’s dad, Avram BakAlli and her late husband JuliusAlli’s sister Luba & husband JashaAlli’s family. The mother Sonia in the frontAlli’s family in Memel, LithuaniaAlli, Morris Back and Harry BockMy mum, Ray and my grandfather Socher ZeldinBack of the photoGene & Vicki with their daughter, Marny and her husband Cody
Alli is a Holocaust Survivor and has her testimony recorded at USHMM as well as the Spielberg Foundation.
The USHMM link is here:
Oral history interview with Alli Itzkowitz – Collections Search – United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Only 3 hours 15 minutes from Perth to Sydney, but 15 and a half hours to Dallas!
I left Perth at 5:15 am and arrived in Dallas at 2pm the same day. A 13 hour time change!
A nice and warm 38C – 100F day in Dallas.
My first time here, and the first time I’m meeting my Texas family.
I was met at the Dallas – Fort Worth Airport by Gene Itzkowitz, my second cousin on our mothers’ sides. Gene and his wife, Vicki are hosting me here in Dallas.
This must be Texas!
Alli and her younger son Gene
Here is my relationship chart to Alli, my mother’s first cousin and the last of her ZELDIN generation. They never met.
Allis’ paternal Bak grandparents – Leib and Naomi
Alli’s dad, Avram BakAlli and her late husband JuliusAlli’s sister Luba & husband JashaAlli’s family. The mother Sonia in the frontAlli’s family in Memel, LithuaniaAlli, Morris Back and Harry BockMy mum, Ray and my grandfather Socher ZeldinBack of the photoGene & Vicki with their daughter, Marny and her husband Cody
Alli is a Holocaust Survivor and has her testimony recorded at USHMM as well as the Spielberg Foundation.
The USHMM link is here:
Oral history interview with Alli Itzkowitz – Collections Search – United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Museum in Washington, D.C., United States of America
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States’ official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. Wikipedia
Address: 100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl SW, Washington, DC 20024, United States
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