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Bob Narev MNZM is a survivor of Theresienstadt. He was recently interviewed by Gary Hoogvliet for Shine TV.
Auschwitz. In popular culture the term has become an archetypal symbol, a metaphor for ultimate evil. So mind-bending were the actions undertaken at this, the largest mass murder factory in human history, that Auschwitz has become ground zero on the moral landscape.
“Too often the Holocaust is considered as a standalone event, almost as though the Jews of Europe were simply unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the events of 1940s did not happen apart from the events of the 1930s. And those events did not happen apart from the German philosophical and theological writings of the previous four centuries…”
In 1986 or 1987 I had an electrifying encounter with Alice Newman, not that I knew her name. It was at the time of the visit to New Zealand of David Irving, now known as a Holocaust denier and revisionist, but then with a reputation as an accomplished historian, even though somewhat controversial.
Our recent event, Saving The Shoah, opened with a new Shadows of Shoah story, that of Alice Newman. Eleven years old when the Nazis invaded Poland, Alice and her mother were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto… Years later, in New Zealand, Alice had an encounter with Holocaust denier David Irving.
We exist in a world 54% of Americans have ever heard of the Holocaust and 32% of those believe the event has been greatly exaggerated or is a myth… Sadly, today there are worrying signs in Europe from groups that can’t honestly claim to be ignorant.
An event to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz will be staged in Bethlehem College’s beautiful Performing Arts Centre on 25 January 2020.