New Zealand Immigration Policy

I survived Auschwitz

Zeev (Tibi) Ram, a survivor of Auschwitz will be talking about his story in schools, university and the Jewish community. He is in New Zealand from April 19 to May 3, 2012. His visit is organised by the ZFNZ and the Israeli Embassy. He will be in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

For more information contact schlicha@zfnz.or.nz

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 Immigration Policy

Written by Ann Beaglehole

This essay looks at the response of the New Zealand government to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi dominated Europe in the years before the Second World War and to survivors of the Holocaust trying to reach New Zealand in the years immediately following the end of the war. Jews were considered extremely undesirable settlers in the 1930s and 1940s. The small number who gained refuge in New Zealand before and after the war encountered prejudice and considerable suspicion of cultural differences. Given the extent of dislike of foreigners and of cultural difference at this time, it is in a way remarkable that New Zealand accepted any Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors at all. In the 1930s and 1940s, New Zealand society was extremely homogenous and most New Zealanders were ignorant about and isolated from the rest of the world (except Britain) in a way difficult to imagine today. They were very proud of their British heritage and took for granted that the most desirable immigrants to New Zealand would be British, or as much like the British as possible. This changed gradually as New Zealanders gained experience of other countries during the war and through their encounter with successive waves of immigrants arriving in the country.

Read full article here

Links

Holocaust images

Two Holocaust survivors

The current display at the Holocaust Centre describes the lives of two Holocaust survivors, their Holocaust experiences, their lives before and their lives after the Holocaust. One is from Rakovic, the Czech Republic, the other from Szobathely, Hungary. The two stories are two book ends of the Holocaust. The persecution of the Jews of the Czech lands was the beginning of the total annihilation of the Jews of European, the deportation and mass murder of Hungarian Jews was the final act.