The Courage to Care exhibit recently at the Brisbane Square Library remembers those that helped Jewish people during the Holocaust. People like Indigenous Australian William Cooper who even though his people were engaged in their own battle for rights and protections went to the German Consul-General in Melbourne to protest against the treatment of Jews throughout Europe. People like Berthold Beitz that ran an oil refinery that provided work permits to Jews to protect them against the Nazis. People like Nicholas Winton who in1988 got surprised on television when he got to reunite with some of the people he saved. Why did people choose to help and others not? The answer from those that did help is often nothing more than, “I didn’t do anything, I just did what I thought was right”The hunt for Nazi war criminals goes on as it should. The greying of their hair should not make us slow down the hunt but speed it up.
The hunt for other war criminals also continues. The Cambodia War Crimes Tribunal underfunded and lacking political will is attempting to bring to justice the war criminals that played a role in the Cambodia genocide. A genocide that has seen a high number of survivors suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and anxiety and many not seeking help in a country riddled with poverty and landmines. The International Criminal Court granted only limited powers also attempts to bring to justice war criminals from various conflicts like the Rwanda genocide.
The Courage to Care exhibit with survivors there to tell you their stories and profiles of those that helped the Jews shows only part of the horrors and stories of the Holocaust. Some of the suicides of survivors, those that helped Jews that were killed after the war by ultra nationalists. Jews in hiding during the war murdered not by the Nazis but their rescuers who out of fear killed those they had spent over a year protecting. These are some of the other stories out there about the Holocaust and its aftermath. .