MIRROR ON THE PAST… REFLECTIONS ON OUR FUTURE ANTISEMITISM
Holocaust Centre Melbourne 26th November 2023
Talk by Paul Valent

Introduction

I was in Nazi Hungary between the ages of 4 and 7. Nine tenths of my peers were murdered. My parents and I had skirted with death, but unusually, we survived by living among the general population pretending to be Christian. We did this for three years until liberation. I had much time to think while hiding in our apartment. At the age of 9 I started a book about antisemitism and war in order for them to not happen again. Almost 8 decades later, and especially in the current environment, I am still grappling with this what has been called the longest hatred.

Serge Klarsfeld who documented the Shoah in his film by the same name, warned against asking ‘Why?’ He said such a question would make the perpetrators appear human.

But victims, no matter how well documented their suffering, do not provide the answers to perpetrator hood. We must take the risk that perpetrators are human, and ask them ‘Why?’

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