Amends for Evian, 80 years on
A QUEENSLAND Liberal MP wants Australia to issue a formal apology to the Jewish people for its refusal to do more to help Germany's Jews on the eve of World War II.
A QUEENSLAND Liberal MP wants Australia to issue a formal apology to the Jewish people for its refusal to do more to help Germany’s Jews on the eve of World War II.
Stuart Robert, the Member for Fadden, has introduced a motion to Parliament which notes that July 15 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Evian Conference, in which countries including Australia were reluctant to help the desperate Jews of Nazi Germany find refuge in the months before Kristallnacht.
Robert chairs the Parliamentary Australia–Israel Allies Caucus, a conservative grouping of 20 Australian MPs who support Israel. There are 36 such caucuses in legislatures around the world, and US Vice-President Mike Pence formerly co-chaired a Congressional equivalent.
Speaking to The AJN, Robert, a practising Christian, quoted biblical teachings about “repentance”, as a basis for such an apology. He expressed confidence the motion, to be debated on March 26, will pass with bipartisan support.
Harking back to the Evian Conference, Robert’s motion states, “The Australian Minister for Trade and Customs in 1938, Lieutenant Colonel T.W. White, declined to further assist the Jewish people, stating ‘Australia has her own particular difficulties … migration has naturally been predominantly British, and it (is not) desired that this be largely departed from while British settlers are forthcoming.’
“Post-Kristallnacht, when the Nazis burned Jewish synagogues, businesses and books, Australia did reassess its policy to admit 15,000 refugees over three years, compared to the previous quota of 1800 per year,” the motion notes, adding that “an estimated six million Jews and millions of others died during the Holocaust, exacerbated by the failure of Australia and other nations of the world to more fully protect the Jewish people”.
Robert’s motion issues “a profound apology and says ‘sorry’ to the Jewish people for the indifference shown by the Parliament in 1938 that worsened the impact of the Holocaust”.
White’s rationalisation about why Australia could not do more for Germany’s Jews is displayed at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as an example of the world’s indifference in that era.
Robert would like to see the parliamentary apology placed alongside White’s words.
Noting that Australia admitted per capita more Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany than the US, Canada and South Africa, Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Peter Wertheim said, “This apparently well intentioned motion is misconceived.”
Australia agreed to take 15,000 Jewish refugees over three years at Evian, he said, not, as the motion states, after Kristallnacht.
PETER KOHN
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