Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

to move:

That the House:

(1)

notes that 2008 marks the 70th anniversary of the Evian Conference, convened by President Roosevelt 11 18 July 1938 in France, as an inter governmental meeting to discuss and formulate an adequate international response to the plight of European Jewry in need of refuge from persecution under the Nazi regime in Germany;

(2)

recalls that:

(a)

an estimated 6 million Jews and millions of others died during the Holocaust as a result of Nazi policies of the ‘final solution’ carried out until 1945;

(b)

the Australian Minister for Trade and Customs, Lieutenant Colonel T W White stated at the Evian Conference: ‘It will no doubt be appreciated also that, as we have no real racial problems, we are not desirous of importing one by encouraging any scheme of large scale foreign migration.’; and

(c)

the attitude of the Nazi Government to the response of Australia was to note how ‘astounding’ it was that foreign countries criticised Germany for their treatment of the Jews, but none of them wanted to open the doors to them when ‘the opportunity [was] offer[ed]’;

(3)

notes that:

(a)

the Holocaust constitutes one of the most heinous acts of genocide in history;

(b)

it remains insufficiently known and acknowledged by the world community that the decisions made at the Evian Conference resulted in the abandonment of the opportunity to save the lives of millions of Jewish people who ultimately perished;

(c)

Lieutenant-Colonel White’s statement on behalf of the Government of Australia is still visible at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, as the single representative response for all other nations’ responses of indifference at the Evian Conference, and is viewed by thousands of tourists annually; and

(d)

the 9 December 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the signing at the United Nations of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to which Australia was one of the first signatories;

(4)

honours the memory of all those who lost their lives in the Holocaust; and

(5)

calls for the Australian Government to send to the Government of Israel a statement of recognition of and regret for the decisions made by Australia at the Evian Conference in 1938, stating Australia’s present friendship with Israel, acknowledging past wrongs, remembering the 70th anniversary of the Evian Conference, and commemorating the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, written on a plaque to be given to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, with a request that the plaque be displayed.

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