Remembering Seventy Years Since the Holocaust

By Marcus Braid on June 9, 2015 in News

With the horror of World War II etched in her family’s history, it was on a deep personal level that Waverley Councillor Miriam Guttman-Jones commemorated 70 years since the end of the Holocaust.

The elapse of 70 years since liberation for the Jewish people was marked in April, and it was a poignant occasion for Ms Guttman-Jones.

“Although I was born after the war, the Holocaust really affected my view of the world; I had very little family because of it,” she said.

“It’s hard to believe it’s already 70 years. My mother was one of six siblings and she was the only survivor. My father was one of eight siblings, and just he and a brother survived. My parents were married at the start of the war and they had a daughter during the war, who was shot at 18 months.”

Leopold Guttman, Miriam’s father, grew up in Berlin when Adolf Hitler was starting to take control, and thought it safer to leave Germany.

“Since they had a Polish background, they decided to migrate back to Poland,” Ms Guttman-Jones said. “In retrospect it wasn’t such a smart decision, but who knew what would happen?

“My mother and father were from Kraków in Poland. Both of my parents were at Auschwitz.

“Unfortunately my father did not speak much about his experiences in the war. The only things I really knew about him were from my late mother.”

Ms Guttman-Jones is a member of the Jewish Board of Deputies, and attends their commemoration services.

“Sometimes it’s not easy,” she said. “It’s something I always remember on a very deep and personal level.”

The 70-year anniversary since the liberation of the Jews was commemorated in Sydney at the City Recital Hall at Angel Place on April 15.

“I thought the ceremony at Angel Place was excellent. It was well done. It had a lot of emotion without being overly sentimental. I think it’s very important to commemorate something like that.”

Waverley Council has three Jewish councillors in Tony Kay, Leon Goltsman and Ms Guttman-Jones, representative of the strong Jewish community in the area, with 17% of Waverley residents Jewish.

“When the chips are down, we band together,” she said. “Like any other community, we have our own divisions.

“We’ve got our ultra-Orthodox, we’ve got our Reformed, we’ve got those who see themselves as being culturally Jewish but are not particularly religious. But we all see ourselves as Jews and we’re in this together.”

Last year, Ms Guttman-Jones forwarded a motion, supported by Council, to document the post-war Jewish migration to Sydney. The project, called ‘Eat, Pray, Naches’, is now ready to be launched.

“Most [post-war Jewish migrants in Sydney] initially settled in Waverley,” she said. “Most of the Holocaust survivors you can count on one hand, but then there’s the second generation such as myself. I was five when I came to this country. I was born in Israel.

“I thought it was necessary that we document the story of the post-war Jewish migration to Waverley; Waverley really changed over the years because of this migration.”