New Zealand Holocaust centre honored

JUSTICE and ACCOUNTABILITY AFTER THE HOLOCAUST

The keynote address by Peter McKenzie QC at the Parliamentary reception for the 2012 UN International Holocaust Memorial Day

In the final stages of the Second World War the allied armies sweeping through eastern Germany and Europe came across sites of such horror and carnage that they found it hard to believe that even the Nazi regime in its worst excesses could have been responsible. Near the town of Gotha they found a death camp where thousands of Jewish prisoners were starved to death and this was reported to General Eisenhower the Allied Supreme Commander. The bodies of naked emaciated men were piled in the rooms and the stench was overpowering. General Patton would not enter fearing he would be physically sick. Eisenhower however strode in and forced himself to inspect every nook and cranny. He called for photographers and ordered that Germans from the neighbouring villages be brought in and required to bury the dead. In this way they would have to confront the reality of what the Nazi regime had been doing. He stated:

Four People behind the Numbers

The German Unger Story - the fate of a family

Four People behind the Numbers

In February 2011 The Listener published an article about Diana Wichtel’s journey to the death camps her father survived. In that article a reference was made to the International Tracing Service, whom I contacted. 6 months later they provided another tiny piece of evidence of the fate of my family. At a time when the world is tuning in to the trials of the 2^nd worst European murders of all time, it is timely to remember the worst genocide, and the faces of some who did not survive.

The Violinist

The book by Sarah Gaitanos about Clare Galambos Winter, past member of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Hungarian survivor of Auschwitz, is now available from the Wellington Holocaust Research and Education Centre

$40 plus $4.50 postage, $44.50 (NZ)

Are your origins in Austria?

Inge Woolf is collecting material for a Symposium in Vienna on Austrian Jewish migration to New Zealand and the work of the Holocaust Centre. If you would like to contribute your story please fill in this survey

Holocaust survivors

Holocaust survivors Freda Narev (hidden by a Catholic family in Poland) and Bob Narev (survivor of the Concentration Camp of Theresienstadt) are prepared, by arrangement, to speak of their experiences to secondary schools in the Greater Auckland area. They can be contacted by email fabnarev@clear.net.nz

March of the living

THE MARCH OF THE LIVING is an international, educational programme that brings Jewish teens (16 year olds) from around the world to Poland on Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, to march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest concentration camp complex built during World War II, and then to Israel to observe Yom Hazikaron, Israel Memorial Day, and Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel Independence Day.

Anne Frank

The Anne Frank travelling exhibition tells the story of Anne Frank and the Holocaust to people who are not able to visit the Anne Frank Museum in The Netherlands. The exhibition will tour throughout New Zealand for three years, visiting museums and community centres to teach people the story of Anne Frank and the Holocaust.

Click here for more information.

Holocaust research

New Zealand Holocaust centre honored

The Wellington Holocaust Research and Education Center, founded in 2006, received one of 12 New Zealand Diversity Awards, which recognize projects that have made a difference in understanding diversity.

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Inge Woolf, Tuheitia Paki, the Maori King, and Joris de Bres, Race Relations Commissioner.

“It is a great honor for the centre to receive this national award after only five years of our existence,” said the centre’s director, Inge Woolf. “Our basic aim has been to tell of humanity lost, of resilience and survival, and to teach tolerance, courage and racial harmony.”

The Wellington Holocaust Research and Education Centre teaches the history of the Holocaust through the lives of the survivors and refugees who came to the New Zealand. Thousands of schoolchildren have taken part in its programs, which are taught in accordance with the New Zealand school curriculum.

The centre has also spearheaded the annual observance of United Nations International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27 at the Jewish cemetery in Wellington.

Links

Holocaust images

Survivors, Righteous Gentiles, and Second Generation

An account of the Holocaust has to consider the experience of the Holocaust survivors, the role of those who did their best to resist the perpetrators by helping and saving victims, and the impact of the Holocaust on the children of survivors, the second and even third generation. The link to Holocaust stories at the top of the page describes the impact of the Holocaust on the lives of a number of New Zealanders who are Holocaust survivors, children of Holocaust survivors and those who helped and saved Jews during the Holocaust