Imagine seeing your brother shot by Nazis when you are eight years old.
Imagine losing your mother and father in a genocide.
Imagine your childhood home turned into a ghetto and your entire Jewish community destroyed.
This is the story of Melbourne man Joe Szwarcberg, from Kozienice, Poland.
I had the enormous privilege of meeting this amazing man and his family at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum on Holocaust Memorial Day.
As a child, Joe risked his life searching for food, survived multiple brutal labour camps, and endured starvation in Buchenwald before being liberated at just 14 years old, when he weighed 32 kilos.
Today, at 95, Joe is known as the last of the Buchenwald Boys and continues to tell his story.
His attitude to life leaves a lasting impression on everyone he meets.
After immigrating to Australia Joe rebuilt his life from nothing, built a successful shoe business, and raised a family.
And yet, decades after coming to our peaceful land, Joe tells how one night he watches the news of a crowd chanting of “gas the Jews” and “kill the Jews” outside the Sydney Opera House.
The trauma of this must be truly unimaginable.
Yet Joe’s wish is heartbreakingly simple: that Jewish people in Australia be able to walk the streets in peace.
This is why we must fight against antisemitism with all our might.
