Honouring the heroes of Zakynthos
Yad Vashem’s director of international relations, Searle Brajtman, told a Greek-Australian audience last week about heroic actions on Zakynthos island.
IT was impossible not to be moved last Thursday when Yad Vashem’s director of international relations, Searle Brajtman, addressed a Greek-Australian audience in Sydney about the heroic actions of two Righteous Among the Nations recipients who helped save all of Zakynthos’s Jews.
In October 1943, the Ionian island’s mayor Loukas Karrer, and Bishop Chrysostomos Demetriou, refused a demand by Nazi commanders to provide a list of the names and addresses of 275 Jews.
At great risk to themselves, they provided a list with only two names – their own.
The Nazis then revoked an order to round up the island’s Jews, and departed.
A plaque honouring Karrer and Chrysostomos was installed at the site of Zakynthos’ old synagogue earlier this year, and Brajtman said a similar plaque will soon be installed at the School of Advanced Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem, attended by more than 300,000 students a year.
Brajtman told The AJN that events such as the December 1 Heroes of Zakynthos fundraising dinner, hosted by Levitt Robinson Solicitors, “really drive home a universal message of the importance of doing the right thing”.
“That’s what we at Yad Vashem are trying to do whenever we memorialise people who are [members of the] Righteous Among the Nations. It is not just a question of making a memorial to people who did something amazing for others and at great risk to themselves, it is saying – folks, learn from this,” he said.
“In a world which in many aspects seems to have lost its moral compass, what these two people did in Zakynthos is extraordinarily inspiring to all of us – it is a beacon of light to everyone.
“The day before the event, I was invited to the Greek Consul-General and he encouraged everyone in the Greek community to attend because it was a wonderful way to moralise these amazing heroes.
“So it was very positively received and we hope that support continues for this amazing project.”
Brajtman attended the opening of Sydney Jewish Museum’s Righteous of the Nations exhibition on Tuesday before flying to Singapore where he was due to attend the inaugural Yad Vashem Dinner in Asia, featuring as keynote speaker, Melbourne Holocaust survivor Eva Slonim.
He said new initiatives at Yad Vashem include establishing a Jewish World Department, a Shoah Heritage Building, and expanding Holocaust education services at an IDF training base in the Negev.
SHANE DESIATNIK
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