‘It can happen again’
“LISTEN carefully to us, for we are the last of the survivors, the last of the witnesses,” implored Baba Schwartz as she delivered her testimony at the UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration.
“LISTEN carefully to us, for we are the last of the survivors, the last of the witnesses,” implored Baba Schwartz as she delivered her testimony at the UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration at the Jewish Holocaust Centre (JHC) on Monday evening.
And everybody did, intently. More than 300 people, including politicians, diplomats and members of the community. The main auditorium was packed to capacity; even the overflow room was full.
Baba, 89, spoke of her early life – very much a happy one – growing up in a small town in eastern Hungary before the war broke out.
After years of experiencing anti-Semitism, in 1944, -Baba and her family were taken to Auschwitz with more than 3000 other Jews. They were placed in a holding camp and endured “three days of unspeakable horror in cattle wagons” to get there.
“We did not know, we could not know, that we had arrived at the gates of hell,” she said.
At Auschwitz Baba lost her father and many members of her extended family. But she, her mother and her two sisters survived.
“We survived by good fortune and we survived by the iron will and courage of my mother. We survived hell.”
From Auschwitz they were taken to a number of slave labour camps, often marching in unspeakable conditions with the ever-present threat of being shot. “The fear, hunger, freezing cold and exhaustion were unrelenting.
“I looked back once [on a death march] and saw an SS guard holding a woman down while another soldier shot her in the head. Then the body was thrown to the side of the road. I felt sick,” Baba recalled.
After surviving a final death march, they were liberated by the Russian Army. In the 1950s, Baba emigrated to Australia with her husband. She has recently written a memoir – The May Beetles: My First Twenty Years – detailing her experiences.
“Can it all happen again?” she asked the audience. “You bet it can. We might not be next, but some group will be. So let’s keep telling our stories. Let’s continue to caution against discrimination and hate. Let us all watch our words before they turn into actions.”
Also on the night, former Australian ambassador to Germany David Ritchie spoke about the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
Other speakers included president of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria Jennifer Huppert, co-presidents of the JHC Pauline Rockman and Sue Hampel, a representative from March of the Living, and a fourth generation Holocaust survivor.
As is customary, six candles were lit to remember the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
PHOEBE ROTH
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