Holocaust Centre says education key to dismantling anti-Semitic views

Wednesday, 30 March 2022

Stacey Morrison presents Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl in te Reo Maori, a joint venture by the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand and Anne Frank NZ.

Education is key to understanding the atrocities of the Holocaust and dismantling anti-Semitic views, the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand says.

Speaking with Stuff after revelations a fifth of surveyed New Zealanders said they knew “virtually nothing” about the Holocaust, deputy chairwoman Miriam Bookman said understanding the fundamentals was critical.

The Survey of Anti-Semitism in New Zealand 2021, released this week, was conducted by Curia Research. It asked 1000 New Zealanders about 18 statements to measure anti-Semitic sentiments.

When it came to the Holocaust, the attempted genocide of Jewish people and other minorities by Nazi Germany, 19 per cent of respondents said they knew “a great deal” about the event while 17 per cent said they knew “virtually nothing”.

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Just 42 per cent knew 6 million Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust, referred to as the Shoah in Hebrew.

Miriam Bookman is the deputy chairwoman of the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand.

“That 6 million figure, it is front and centre,” Bookman said.

“Whether numbers objectively determine how much you know about a historical event, the way Holocaust education has played out globally, it is such a foundational figure that it is a useful benchmark for understanding people’s knowledge of the Holocaust.”

The survey asked people whether they agreed with anti-Semitic ideas, which stemmed from ancient propaganda and were not factual.

It found 63 per cent of those surveyed held “at least one anti-Semitic view”, ranging from whether Jewish people control financial markets (17 per cent agreed) to whether they control global media (10 per cent agreed). Jewish people control neither.

Six per cent held some of the harshest views, including disagreeing that New Zealand Jews were “just as Kiwi” as other New Zealanders, or that “Kiwi Jews make a positive contribution to New Zealand society”. Bookman said that group was cause for concern.

“I think 6 per cent is not small for a very troubling statement,” she said.

“Six per cent of respondents agree that Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves. That is a quite a serious anti-Semitic trope.

“What we have learned is that views held by a small section of society can spread, so that is worrying to us and something we think exemplifies why Holocaust education is so important.”

Bookman said that with a clear correlation between how people thought and how they acted, the prevalence of anti-Semitic views in the country posed a risk to the estimated 10,000 Jewish people in New Zealand.

“It shows we can't be complacent. Even if we are not seeing a huge surge in anti-Semitic behaviour, we would not want to wait for that to play out before we act,” she said.

The Holocaust Centre is based in Wellington, where it hosts classes of mostly high school students for education sessions. There are plans to build a centre in Auckland too.

Bookman said while the Government did not currently fund the Holocaust Centre’s activities, it would welcome a partnership with any ministry.

The Ministry of Ethnic Communities, which supported the survey with funding, has been approached for comment.