Bish on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Chris Bishop’s speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day:

Today we remember the death of over six million Jews, including 1.5 million children, and the death of millions of Poles, Russians, Roma, the disabled, political opponents, and homosexuals by the despotic Nazi regime.

We remember who they were. Scientists. Authors. Lawyers. Doctors. Teachers. Artists. Mothers. Fathers. Sons. Daughters. Grandmothers and grandfathers. Brothers. Sisters.

My great grand-father Marcus Feuer was a Polish leather merchant. He was taken by train to the Majdanek or Lublin concentration camp (prisoner number 90) and died there along with around 80,000 others.

My great grand-mother Gisela Feuer (nee Spira) was the daughter of a Czech trodler. She had three children with Marcus. She was taken by train to the Majdanek or Lublin concentration camp (prisoner number 93) and died there along with around 80,000 others.

I have found the response to October 7 almost unfathomable, both here in New Zealand and worldwide.

Rather than unequivocal condemnation of clear human rights violations, war crimes and mass brutality on an industrial scale, the response from many people has been the opposite.

 The Jewish people know all too well that there is always a “but”

 “October 7 was wrong, but…

 “It’s bad that over 250 hostages were ripped from their homes and taken to Hamas tunnels, but…

 “Rape and sexual violence is abhorrent, but…”

 “Believe all women” – but not Jewish women

So sadly true.

I think of my Jewish friends who feel unwelcome and unsafe in their own country, who have “Zionist” spat at them as if a belief in self-determination for the Jewish people is somehow immoral or illegal.

Any Jew who believes in a two state solution are by definition Zionists.

So, please, let’s drop the “From the River to the Sea” chants. The Jewish community has made it very clear what they think this chant means. Political leaders in New Zealand involving themselves with this should know better. Can we make the “lived experience” of Jews matter too please?

Likewise, “long live the Intifada” and “globalise the Intifada” are not just simple protest slogans. They mean violence and plenty of it.

When Jewish people hear these chants, what they hear is not a call for liberation, but a call for the denial of their basic humanity.

Saying that we should’t listen to how Jews perceive “From the Rover to the Sea” should be akin to saying we shouldn’t listen to how African Americans perceive the n-word.