Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's 1944 and two-year-old Suzi Smeed is being smuggled out of a Hungarian ghetto into hiding. In three days, her grandparents will be on a cattle train to Auschwitz—a place they will never leave. Separated from her parents, the orphanage that was her temporary refuge is destroyed by bombing. Suzi was hidden by good people trying to keep her alive. Her desperately searching mother did find her—surviving, just, in a barn. Her beautiful red hair had fallen out and she was covered in sores. The clothes she wore, when taken away, more recognisable than her physical features.

This is Suzi Smeed's harrowing start to life, revealed in her book The Courage to Care. Her memoire details her survival of the Hungarian holocaust and fleeing to Australia as a refugee with her mum and her then successful life in Australia. Now in her 80s, Suzi visits schools to educate children about the dangers of prejudice, racism and discrimination.

The telling of her story is a testament to Susie's strength and commitment to condemn anti-Semitism and reminds us of events that must never be repeated.