‘Get politics out of this’: At Auschwitz, Dreyfus tries to put focus back on Holocaust

Coleman said the Australian Jewish community had “every right to be angry with the Labor Party. Peter Dutton and the Coalition have every right to point out the failure of the Labor Party”.

More than 1.1 million people, predominantly Jews, were murdered at Auschwitz, along with Poles, Roma, Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war and homosexuals. Among them was Ida Ransenberg, Dreyfus’ great-grandmother, killed on October 14, 1942.

Dreyfus and Wong met 89-year-old Holocaust survivor Zofia Radzikowska, along with the centre executive director Jonathan Ornstein, on Sunday. Almost 100 curious onlookers and Polish media had gathered outside the building when a rumour swept the city that King Charles III would be visiting, only to be confused by the arrival of two Australian politicians.

Australian authorities are investigating 15 “serious allegations” among more than 166 reports of antisemitic attacks received since mid-December when Special Operation Avalite was formed to address rising antisemitism.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday in Perth that Australians were overwhelmingly horrified by antisemitism, and it was important to look for unity rather than political differentiation.

He promised $4.4 million towards a new education centre at Canberra’s National Jewish Memorial Centre and $2 million to upgrade the Holocaust Institute of Western Australia’s education centre “to educate our young Australians about the horrors of the Holocaust and teach them from an early age that such prejudice, hatred and violence has no place here”.

Matching the $2 million for WA’s Holocaust Institute, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said it was crucial to “extend the knowledge of history to younger generations so that the mistakes of the past can’t be repeated”.

A survey last week exposed a global trend of fading knowledge of the Holocaust, with almost half of young adults in France and one in nine young Germans unaware of it.

Dutton said antisemitism had no place in Australia and shared none of the values celebrated over the Australia Day weekend.

“We have Holocaust survivors in our country saying that they’ve lived here peacefully since the end of the Second World War and they now feel unsafe in our country – we know that we’ve got a significant problem,” he told Radio 6PR in Perth.

Dreyfus said Australia had not been alone in what had been a shocking rise in hate crimes against the Jewish community after the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the country’s military bombardment of Gaza since.

“I understand all too well, perhaps better than most, the shocking rise in antisemitism that we’ve experienced in Australia and indeed right across the world,” he said.

“Every part of the community has to work together to make sure that antisemitism, events of antisemitism, conduct that is antisemitic violence, that’s got an antisemitic association, has to end.”

Dutton took aim at Wong last week, saying she was the “most inappropriate person” to attend the event because she had “trashed” Australia’s reputation amid a high-profile diplomatic falling out with the Israeli government, including fierce criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Asked about the criticism of her presence in Poland, Wong said the focus should not be on her but on the horrors of the Holocaust and urged Australians to join together in combating antisemitism.

“This is not a day for politics, it’s not a time for politics, this is a time to remember the murder of 6 million people, 6 million Jews, and to say ‘never again’, and that’s why we’re here,” she said.

“I think if we really mean never again, then we need to work together across politics and across faiths, and I have confidence Australians can do that.”

The pair will join world leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, King Charles and Spain’s King Felipe VI at the service.

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