Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to pay tribute to Halina Strnad, a remarkable and beloved member of our local Labor family in Chisholm who died recently. Born Halina Wagowska in Poland, Halina grew up in the city of Poznan. Hers was a loving family of Jewish cultural heritage. The safety of her childhood was cruelly disrupted by the German invasion of Poland. Halina spent time in Auschwitz and Stutthof concentration camps, bearing witness to the darkest of human deeds. Halina lost both her parents in the camps, her mother dying in her arms. Halina was forced to work in the Todkommando, the 'death squad', at Auschwitz, a place now synonymous with the most abject suffering. After the war, after an escape from Stutthof that Halina could not quite remember, she came to Australia, boarding a boat in Marseilles, and built a life here, dedicating her long life to social justice.

Halina wrote a book, The Testimony, to detail not just her own experiences of life through one of the world's most horrifying events but to be a reflection on what she had learned settling in Melbourne as a refugee, and her story is one of compassion but also of steely determination. The Testimony opens with a quote from Aldous Huxley:

Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.

Halina took things that happened to her—horrific, heartbreaking things—and turned these into an experience that propelled a life of passionate activism, commitment to her community and an unwavering focus on justice.

Recently, in 2020, Halina gave testimony as a witness in the trial of Bruno Dey, a Nazi guard at the Stutthof concentration camp at the same time as Halina was a Jewish prisoner. After so many years, justice was finally able to be pursued, and Halina's clear statements were vital to this process. I want to now read Halina's own words about speaking out. She said:

My need to speak out about the things that matter to me is great, and my limited time and capacity to do so a constant frustration. Current social, political and legal reforms lag behind so many urgent human needs. Minority groups worldwide still suffer as a result of ingrained prejudices and racist attitudes and the denial of basic human rights.

I hope to honour Halina's memory and legacy by doing my part of the work in this place that was so important to her. Vale, Halina. You will remain an inspiration to all who knew you. We will miss you. May her memory be a blessing.

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