NEIL MITCHELL:
Josh Frydenberg, good morning.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good morning, Neil. Good morning to your listeners.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Do you find it offensive to compare Margaret Court to a Holocaust denier?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, you can’t compare it. No such comparisons should be made. The Holocaust was not just a crime against the Jewish people, it was a crime against humanity; homosexuals, the disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, political prisoners, religious leaders, Roma, Sinti, they all fell afoul of the Nazi killing machine. As well as you said, Neil, six million Jews and, tragically, heartbreakingly, 1.5 million Jewish children. It was the darkest chapter in human history and it’s one that we should say “never again” and that is why having museums, having exhibits, having testimonies, particularly as those survivors are dwindling in numbers as the years go by, is so important.
NEIL MITCHELL:
What happens today? You, the Prime Minister, Penny Wong; what happens?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Today we are partnering with the ACT Government, Andrew Barr’s Government, in order to help establish a Holocaust museum in Canberra. We have made similar arrangements with the Marshall Government in South Australia, the McGowan Government in Western Australia, the Palaszczuk Government in Queensland. As you know, in both Melbourne and Sydney, there’s been long-standing Holocaust museums with the support of both governments. Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day and it’s a day that marks, as you say, the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau which was the largest concentration camp liberated by the Soviets back in 1945. There was a UN Resolution passed back in 2005 to note this day and it was co-sponsored then by Australia. It’s an opportunity to remember the innocent, but also to pledge our commitment to say “never again” and to promote tolerance and diversity.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Do you think that the Holocaust is being forgotten? Do you think that generations now don’t fully understand what happened? Is that the danger? Is that what’s happening?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Certainly, as time passes, memories fade and in many cases, it is simply ignorance and it is simply a fact that we don’t have in our education system a sufficient focus on this time in history. Now, I congratulate the Andrews’ Government for ensuring that all students in Victoria in years nine and ten have an opportunity to learn Holocaust education. We need to see this replicated around the country. Let’s not forget what US General, Dwight Eisenhower, said when he confronted those horrific images at the camps in 1945 when he was part of the allied forces, he said there would come a day when people would deny the Holocaust ever happened and I am afraid there is a rise in historical revisionism. We saw Iran, for example, holding a conference denying the Holocaust ever took place. Therefore, it’s incumbent on all good people, Jewish and non-Jewish, across the world to place an emphasis on Holocaust remembrance but also education about genocides more broadly, whether it was in Darfur, whether it was in Rwanda, where it has been in Cambodia. We need to promote tolerance, diversity and take on hate wherever we see it.
NEIL MITCHELL:
I remember speaking to you when you’d just left Auschwitz, you were in Germany at the time two years ago...
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
It was Poland.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Poland, rather, a few years ago. You were deeply affected. Does it still affect you like that?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Absolutely. You only have to see the images from that time, the skeletal bodies of the survivors. But as a father, my heart breaks to think about the children who perished. When you go to Auschwitz-Birkenau and you actually see the crematorium, when you see the rooms full of people’s suitcases that were kept by the Germans, the hair, the spectacles, the teeth, the gold fillings that they had in their teeth, you can see this killing machine in action and you ask yourself the question; I wasn’t angry, I just had an empty feeling. How did a cultured people such as the Germans and the Austrians who produced Mozart and Bach and Weber, how did they descend into such inhumanity to their fellow man?
NEIL MITCHELL:
I mentioned talking to some people on the weekend who believe anti-Semitism is growing in Australia. Do you believe it is? If so, why?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I think it is. Again, it’s a lack of education and understanding. We’re seeing anti-Semitic acts on the rise against kids in Victorian schools, including kids, tragically as young as five, we’re seeing swastikas, as you said in your introduction, daubed across businesses that are owned by Jews or Jewish sites, or indeed, on promotion material for a theatre production of Anne Frank of all things. So we have seen this anti-Semitism on the rise, and I think we need to call it out and that’s why Holocaust education is part of the response.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Thank you so much for your time, I know you’re in a hurry. I appreciate it. Thank you.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good to be with you.