Perry Trotter: Speech at IHRD 2025
INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY
Wellsford, New Zealand, 26 January 2025
Tonight we remember Europe's decisive action to purge itself once for all of the Jews, and of all that they represent. Advisedly I say Europe acted, not merely Germany. In many of the countries into which the Nazis moved, the general populace was willing, sometimes passionately eager, to cooperate in gathering, betraying, torturing and murdering their Jewish neighbours.
I well remember the words of one of the seventy survivors I have photographed. He explained that it was not that the Germans hated Jews more than the Poles or Ukrainians. It was that the Poles or Ukrainians would kill with pitch forks or their boots. The Germans, however, applied themselves to the task. They developed an industrial machine for efficient disposal of Europe's Jews.
Europe acted, to be free once and for all of the Jews, and of all they represent. And in large measure Europe succeeded. Of the Jews of Poland, 3 million strong prior to the war, 90 per cent were murdered. In Lithuania, up to 97% of Jews were killed.
Eighty years have passed since the Holocaust. But according to recent statistics, the global Jewish population is yet to recover to pre-Holocaust levels.
Eighty years. So much has changed. And yet nothing has changed. Today there are many entities eager to resume the task interrupted by the allied victory in 1945. And just as a cooperative general populace in Europe was essential to the success of the Nazi death scheme, antisemitic ideas and actions proliferate today because so few are willing to speak up.
A decade ago about a quarter of the world’s adults held antisemitic views. Today that figure is closer to half of all adults. The implications are disturbing. The trajectory is unmistakable, undeniable.
Elsewhere I have made the observation that The Jewish Problem, as it came to be known, might be more properly named The Gentile Problem. Antisemitism is, after all, a Gentile issue before it is a Jewish issue. The Gentile Problem is that for at least three and a half millennia the Jews have been subject to various forms of persecution at the hands of non-Jews, from marginalisation to murder. The Gentile Problem didn’t begin with the Holocaust - and it certainly didn’t end with the Holocaust.
In 2019 we visited Auschwitz in Poland. It was on that occasion that I shot six of the images you will see in the Auschwitz. Now. exhibition, installed 300m from here at 267 Rodney St. On the same journey we also visited Le Chambon Sur Lignon in the South of France.
Although it is less than a day’s journey from Auschwitz to Le Chambon, the two locations may as well occupy distant galaxies.
Auschwitz was a product of Europe’s most culturally, scientifically and educationally advanced society. In contrast, Le Chambon and the surrounding towns, were home to mostly simple peasant farmers and villagers.
One has appropriately become a symbol of ultimate evil. The other, much lesser known, stands as an example of selfless love and courage in the face of such depravity.
Shortly, to conclude tonight’s programme, we will play a three minute film that tells the beautiful story of Le Chambon. It is tragic that there are so few such beautiful stories. I will ask you to view the film as a call to action.
But first, let me say that I have often reflected on how I might have behaved in 1940s Europe. Friends of the Jewish people faced appalling dilemmas. Would I have had the courage to risk my life in order to shelter Jews? I hope so, but I really don’t know. But of this I am certain: had I not had the fortitude to act in the 1930’s, when Jews were maligned and incrementally marginalised, I certainly would not have had the fortitude to act in the 1940’s, when Jews were gathered to be shot in the forests or shipped to the gates of Auschwitz.
Enemies have been many and friends have been few. And the character of friends like those of Le Chambon is ultimately only proven in times of peril. The Holocaust taught us that those considered friends of the Jewish people are worse than irrelevant if they will not act.
Allow me to ask some rhetorical questions, questions that expose and unsettle, and that demonstrate my theme that although so much has changed, nothing has changed.
In 1945 the world emerged from war. What came to be known as the Holocaust was brought to an end.
But what really changed in 1945? We know the allies prevailed but in regard to what has drawn us together tonight, what really changed?
Did ordinary Europeans repudiate the Jew hatred that for centuries had manifested in economic, social and religious discrimination?
Were the masses of willing accomplices brought to account or at least filled with remorse?
Did the philosophers who influence society from above abandon their intolerance of Jewish distinction and particularity?
Did theologians and churchmen reject the toxic, incoherent and deplorable replacement theology that for centuries had infected Christendom, while cultivating and undergirding the persecution of Jews in Christian Europe?
And in the Middle East, was there a change of heart among the Muslim leaders so keen to see Hitler’s policies implemented in their own lands?
Were the western political and military leaders who knew what was happening to European Jews and yet chose to do little or nothing - were they brought to account?
Of the many nations that chose to close their doors to Jews fleeing certain calamity, how many were willing to acknowledge their moral failure? (NZ made it very difficult for Jews to find refuge here).
Did the exemplary philosemitism, compassion and courage of Le Chambon - as you will soon see - did it begin to permeate European culture?
The answers to these questions are obvious and they are disturbing, confronting and relevant.
Let us leave this place carrying enough of this discomfort to make a difference as antisemitism surges even within our own society.
And so, to the film about Le Chambon…