‘A minute’s silence for each victim would extend for more than 11 years’
By Josh Frydenberg
Ten years ago I represented Australia at the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, World War II’s largest concentration camp.
Today is the 80th anniversary and it also marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day – a solemn occasion that will see world leaders and dignitaries gather in Poland to commemorate the darkest chapter in human history.
During the Holocaust six million Jews, including 1.5 million children, together with Roma, Sinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and the disabled were brutally murdered by the Nazi killing machine.
If we were to observe a minute’s silence for each victim, the silence would extend for more than 11 years.
So devastating was the Nazi genocide that the world’s Jewish population in 2025 is smaller than in 1935.
On a personal level I lost two great grandparents and three great aunts at Auschwitz. My wife’s grandmother, who survived Auschwitz, lost her parents and nine siblings. Her grandfather lost his mother and eight siblings. This experience is not unique and is shared by so many Australian Jewish families.
I still cannot comprehend how the people of Germany, living in such a cultured and civilised society, could descend to such depravity and inhumanity to their fellow man.
How they could celebrate the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Weber, and in the same breath celebrate and facilitate the evil works of Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels.
The answer is indifference. Bad things happen when good people stay silent. Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller put it best when he said: “First they came for the socialists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me … and there was no one left to speak for me.”
We must be on our guard. Since the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023 we have seen a wave of anti-Semitism across the world, including in our own country.
It has led Holocaust survivors in Australia to warn of the alarming parallels they are seeing with the Europe they lived through in the lead-up to World War II.
In their words, the events of 2023 looked like what they saw in 1933.
From the violent mob on the steps of the Sydney Opera House to the fire bombing of Jewish places of worship, Jewish homes and Jewish businesses, what we have seen over the past 15 months is widespread intimidation, violence and harm.
Australian Jews singled out and attacked simply because of their faith.
It is completely unacceptable and has undermined Australian values and our cherished social cohesion.
When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese opened the Melbourne Holocaust museum in November 2023 he said “anti-Semitism is on the rise, but we will not let it find so much as a foothold here”.
Sadly he was wrong. Anti-Semitism has now got more than a foothold in Australia. Dangerously, it has been normalised. This is why Holocaust Remembrance Day this year has added importance.
We must use our past to guide us to a better future. We must learn the lessons of history if we are not to repeat them. We must all understand where anti-Semitism can lead.
This is a call to action and we need our leaders to act.
Governments, federal and state, need to ensure that the community, in particularly the younger generation, are educated about the Holocaust – how it happened and what occurred.
Much work is ahead of us. A quarter of Australians 18 and over have little or no knowledge of the Holocaust. About half of the thousands of people surveyed were not familiar with the fact that six million Jews perished.
Our leaders must ensure that there is compulsory, consistent and comprehensive Holocaust education across all Australian schools.
We must have the right teachers with accredited training and all students should visit a Holocaust museum and, where possible, speak to survivors and their descendants.
My visit 10 years ago to Auschwitz had a profound impact.
To see machinery of death on an industrial scale brought home the responsibility to not just say “never again”, but to ensure never again.
In 1945, when US General Dwight Eisenhower came upon a liberated concentration camp, he asked for all the evidence to be collated because he said there would come a time when people would deny that the Holocaust ever took place.
Sadly that time has come, with some people denying what happened and even more people not knowing what happened.
So now is the time to act and ensure that the tragic events of the past do not become our future.
Josh Frydenberg is the former Treasurer of Australia.
