From Newsroom: NZ's Troubled Relationship With The Holocaust

First published on Newsroom

The dust is settling after a flurry of commemorative events and articles, locally and internationally, marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In the days leading up to UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), the hashtag #WeRemember circulated on social media, with encouragement to contemplate that horrific period of history.

UN Holocaust Remembrance Day falls at the height of New Zealand’s summer holiday season, when sun and surf are uppermost in many Kiwi minds. So it’s hardly surprising that Holocaust commemoration commands relatively little attention. Of greater concern, however, is that according to a poll undertaken in July 2019, New Zealand appears to suffer Holocaust amnesia. The multi-choice survey revealed that only 43 percent of respondents knew that approximately six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, 20 percent thought fewer were killed, 37 percent were unsure, and worryingly, 30 percent were unsure whether the Holocaust had been exaggerated or was a myth.

Holocaust education is not compulsory in our schools - this may contribute to the knowledge gap. However, New Zealand’s failure to send a representative to the recent World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem suggests a problematic relationship to the Holocaust. Indeed, our history vis-à-vis the Holocaust makes for grim reading.

As Hitler’s programme of isolation, discrimination, and dispossession of Jews took hold in the 1930s, our local Jewish community undertook many desperate measures to bring family members to safety in New Zealand. Numerous statements of sympathy from the government, the churches, community groups and individuals were heard. Some groups showed great commitment to the Jewish people. The Christadelphians wrote letters and sent funds to the Jewish community. A Ngapuhi elder told me of his forbears travelling to Wellington to offer the government land for the Jewish refugees. They were told, “go back to your hovels”. The government did little to help refugees fleeing Europe.

In the period between 1933 and 1939 a paltry 1100 Jews were permitted into New Zealand - and those, under the most stringent requirements, as historian Ann Beaglehole describes in her book, A Small Price to Pay: Refugees From Hitler in New Zealand. Little consideration was given to their plight as refugees in a deadly predicament. Indeed, Auckland’s Rabbi Astor, writing to Mark Fagan, Acting Minister of Customs in 1939 on behalf of refugees seeking asylum in New Zealand, sought a waiver for one applicant who was unable to sign the form because he was in a concentration camp. The sponsoring relatives were required to declare that they would seek no further help for relatives or friends. New Zealand’s policy at that time was harsh and punitive.

Fortunately, New Zealand’s immigration policies no longer exhibit the xenophobia of yesteryear. More recent incidents, however, suggest there is still progress to be made in dealing properly with the Holocaust. Dr Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, also known as The Last Nazi Hunter, has spent much of his life tracking Nazi war criminals and bringing them to trial. Up to 46 Nazi war criminals are believed to have fled to New Zealand after World War II. Despite a two-year investigation by a government-formed, two-man taskforce in the early 1990s, none of the suspects was brought before a court of law.

Dr Efraim Zuroff was interviewed in Jerusalem by Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation, Aotearoa New Zealand

In a 2018 interview, Zuroff stated that ‘New Zealand was the only Anglo-Saxon country, (out of Great Britain, United States, Canada and Australia - South Africa was not open to immigration at that time), that chose not to take legal action after a governmental inquiry into the presence of Nazis in New Zealand’.

Government policy and actions are not the only areas in which New Zealand has been found wanting. Our nation has the dubious distinction of being the only Western country in which a tertiary institution holds a thesis denying the Holocaust. In addition, New Zealand is also one of the few western-style liberal democratic nations that has not joined the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which promotes education, commemoration and research.

If we are to be a nation that gives ‘nothing to racism’, we must grapple with the Holocaust, its causes and our relationship thereto.

The antisemitism that drove the genocide of the Jews was not new - it had festered for millennia. However, the efficiency and drive of the Germanic version honed the process of killing. Murder was industrialised on a grand scale. Unfortunately, antisemitism continues to fester and we are now witness to a surge in antisemitic attacks around the world, on individuals and groups.

New Zealand is not immune to this phenomenon. In the past few weeks, there have been several incidences of swastikas painted in public places. News sites that reported the recent incident outside Temple Sinai in Wellington received comments such as the following:

You would be surprised at who did it…

Check the rabbis garage for fluro paint.

These attacks always end out being zionists going after the sympathy note. Amoral scumbags.

The vile comments, frequently seen on social media, prompted Race Relations Commissioner Susan Devoy to comment in 2018 that “If Facebook were around during the Third Reich these posts would’ve fitted right in…".

Antisemitism has an uncanny ability to change its form to suit the season. One of the most prevalent forms of Jew-hatred today comes in the form of anti-Zionism. The International Holocaust Remembrance Association has formulated a definition of antisemitism explicitly connecting anti-Zionism with antisemitism. The IRHA definition states:

“Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity’ with the proviso, ‘However, criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

In addition to the alarming rise in antisemitism, we are also witnessing the re-writing of history in a number of European nations, in an attempt to create distance from the genocide that occurred on their soil. The Holocaust may have happened in distant lands but its reverberations continue in our own. If New Zealand holds to the values of justice and standing against racism, it is incumbent on us to examine our own history in relation to the Holocaust and to step up efforts to ensure that antisemitism is given no ground.

Dr Sheree Trotter, Co-founder Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation, Aotearoa New Zealand (formerly Shadows of Shoah Trust)

From NZ Herald - Auschwitz: A Personal Reflection

First published on NZ Herald

Twelve years ago I began interviewing Holocaust survivors. I have spent countless hours listening to stories of hell on earth. With reluctance, I realised it was time to visit the place where many of these incomprehensible events occurred - Auschwitz.

The books, the films, the first-hand stories of survivors, all rendered the scenes I witnessed eerily familiar - the entrance with the cynical sign Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Makes Free), the railway tracks, watchtowers, electric fences, crematoria and gas chambers, the displays of tonnes of human hair, thousands of spectacles and shoes of all sizes.

Stepping through the dark and dank barracks I was reminded of the accounts of bodies packed into three-tiered wooden bunks, like sardines.

One survivor spoke of so many bodies lying side by side, that when one person had to turn, everyone turned. Another recounted her efforts to ensure she slept on the bunk above her mother to protect her. With so many women suffering dysentry and chronic illness, and the inadequate toilet facilities, many accidents occurred.

More than the remnants of the infrastructure of annihilation, I wanted to know what had become of the remains of the victims. The guide led me to a pond where tonnes of ashes had been dumped. While I understood the thinking of those who determined that things should be preserved largely untouched, it was difficult to accept that the remains of thousands upon thousands lay before me in a sump hole, exposed to the elements.

Visiting Auschwitz was as horrendous as I expected. What I had not anticipated was the sense of normalcy that surrounded this camp. I was shocked that our accommodation was a two-minute walk from Auschwitz and that the town of Oświęcim was immediately adjacent. Why were the townspeople laughing, smiling and behaving as if it were normal to have a death camp on one's door-step? Didn't they know what happened here?

Even more disturbing was the advertising in tourist shops in nearby beautiful Krakow, promoting Auschwitz like any other major tourist attraction. Indeed, our guide informed us of the 8000 daily visitors, and Auschwitz's importance to the local economy.

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum certainly takes seriously its responsibility to educate and inform the public. Preservation, restoration and documentation efforts are extensive and laudable. However, we left Europe with a distinct sense that many there have not truly taken ownership of the genocide that occurred on their soil, a short 75 years ago.

I am yet to shake off the discomfort that accompanied my visit to Auschwitz. However, our next stop in Ben Gurion airport provided a much-needed contrast. The vitality and energy of the people, many of whom are descendants of survivors, facing enormous challenges and yet thriving, was refreshing. Attending a joyful wedding was a fitting antidote to my angst.

While in Jerusalem, we visited 92-year-old Auschwitz survivor Dr Giselle (Gita) Cycowicz, a great-grandmother and still practising psychologist. Over four hours, Gita shared the story of what happened to her family - how they were rounded up into ghettos, sent by train to Auschwitz, subjected to the selection process, humiliated by being forced to strip and having all hair shaved. They lived in inhumane conditions, hungry, thirsty, battling cold and disease.

After five months, Gita was sent to a labour camp, until she was finally set free at the end of the war. She described that moment: "We just stood there - terribly, terribly tired and exhausted in every way and manner. Physically, spiritually and emotionally. And we couldn't smile when told we are free and can go wherever we want, because there is no place we want to go. We don't know why we would be going home. We don't want to go home. To the non-Jews. Who never embraced us and never said a word to try to spare us."

Gita, like so many survivors, did go on to live a full and fruitful life.

My visit to Auschwitz was as profound as it was disturbing, a sense made more acute by awareness of the resurgence of antisemitism across much of Europe.

If Holocaust memory were only facing simple neglect the matter might be easier to address. But the greater challenge is that the history of those events is being denied, distorted and universalised.

In 2005, the United Nations designated the day of the liberation of Auschwitz as International Holocaust remembrance Day. Seventy-five years on, remembering is more important than ever. To mark the occasion, the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand will launch a new exhibition entitled Auschwitz. Now. A memorial event and launch will be held in Bethlehem, Tauranga on January 25.

• Sheree Trotter is a co-founder of the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand and has worked with Holocaust survivors for the past 12 years.

An Interview With The Last Nazi Hunter: Part I

Last year we had the opportunity to interview Dr Efraim Zuroff at the historic King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Known as The Last Nazi Hunter, Efraim has spent much of his life tracking down Nazi war criminals and bringing them to trial. I remembered seeing Efraim on a documentary about Nazis who had found their way to New Zealand and his attempts to bring them to justice.

Efraim made the point that New Zealand was the only Anglo-Saxon country, (out of Great Britain, United States, Canada and Australia - South Africa was not open to immigration at that time), that chose not to take legal action after a governmental enquiry into the presence of Nazis in New Zealand.

View Part II of the interview

A 2008 story in the Otago Daily Times addressed the New Zealand government’s decision not to take further action:

New Zealand set up a two-person unit in 1991 to investigate allegations that perpetrators of war crimes settled in this country.

The unit spent $190,000 investigating the claims in New Zealand and overseas, narrowing the suspected list from 46 to 17 known to be alive and living in the country.

The Wiesenthal centre had supplied 42 of the 46 names.

Fifteen were cleared and two were further investigated, with the unit finding it was "possible" one of the suspects was involved in war crimes.

The finding of the unit was presented by the then attorney-general, Mr Paul East.

"We feel we've discharged our obligations to the international community in the steps we've taken and that we will now only respond if we are given something far more substantial than individual names," Mr East said in 1992.

Dr Zuroff said the centre tried to convince successive New Zealand governments to take legal action against suspected Nazis, but to no avail.

"New Zealand was the only Anglo-Saxon democracy which faced this problem and chose to ignore it," he said.

"There was absolutely no political will to take legal action against the Nazi war criminals who emigrated to New Zealand in the late 1940s and early 1950s, posing as refugees fleeing communism."

"By the time that I found these people, many were no longer alive.

But one who was alive and living in Auckland was Jonas Pukas, a Lithuanian who served in the 12th Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalion, which murdered tens of thousands of Jews in Lithuania and Belarus," Dr Zuroff said.

Given recent events in New Zealand, not only the massacre of Muslims by a terrorist, but the concerns of university students regarding far-right elements on campus and the casual attitudes of shopkeepers towards Nazi paraphenalia, it is timely to consider New Zealand’s relationship with the far-right.

A number of historical events give cause for concern. The New Zealand government’s reluctance to bring Nazi war criminals to justice was not the first questionable decision over the handling of the Holocaust. Our government was also reluctant to allow many Jewish refugees from the Holocaust to immigrate. In more recent times we’ve seen the University of Canterbury granting academic credentials to a Holocaust denier and TVNZ’s uncritical glorification of a Nazi Waffen-SS soldier.

The government’s poor response regarding Nazi war criminals raises uncomfortable questions.

Why were these Nazi crimes minimised?

How would we feel about Tarrant’s crimes being minimised in his old age?

Why is there a casual attitude toward Nazi symbols and paraphenalia when they are associated with genocide?

Is antisemitism taken seriously in New Zealand and is it opposed with as much passion as other forms of racism and hatred?