Holocaust survivor calls on Kiwis to 'learn from history' on Remembrance Day

Thursday, 27 January 2022

The delivery of anti-Semitic pamphlets around Auckland's Remuera in the 1970s led to New Zealand's first conviction for hate speech.

A survivor of the Holocaust is concerned by rising antisemitism 77 years on from the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Auckland resident Bob Narev, 86, was sent to a concentration camp when he was 7 years old. He survived with his mother, but his father and two grandmothers died.

Narev wants Kiwis to be informed and aware of history on Holocaust Remembrance Day, and is concerned that if events are forgotten the consequences will be dire.

Bob Narev is a Holocaust survivor who wants Kiwis to learn about history so they won't be doomed to repeat it.

Narev was born in Germany in 1935 shortly after the Nazis came to power.

Narev was sent to a concentration camp in 1942 when he was 7. He and his mother survived, but his father and two grandmothers died.

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“Being a very young child when the Holocaust started, I wasn’t fully conscious of what was happening until after the war,” he said.

Narev was taken to Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia in August 1942.

“My mother and I were there until 1945, just before the end of the war. In the meantime my father had died from lack of proper medical attention,” he said.

“My two elderly grandmothers, at their age, they certainly couldn’t cope with the conditions of the camp.”

Just this month, on January 15, a gunman in the US took four people hostage in a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. One person was released after six hours, and the other three escaped 11 hours into the standoff.

Narev said the incident was clearly an attack on Jews, and was by no means an isolated incident.

“There are elements of antisemitism in many countries, including New Zealand. It’s a real concern that not enough is being done to try and nip it in the bud,” he said.

Narev wants Kiwis to make sure they know the history of the Holocaust, what happened and how it happened.

He said if events were forgotten, the consequences would not be good.

“The large majority of those Germans who didn’t actively participate, stood by and let it happen,” he said.

“The message that I would give is, don't stand by when something occurs that is obviously an attack on innocent people. Learn from history to see what happens when good people do nothing.”

Narev said there was no reason not to believe Jewish people in Aotearoa might one day be attacked by “evil-thinking people”.

“There are attacks on minorities in many parts of the world, and the mosque attacks in Christchurch are a prime example,” he said.

“But the real danger is if enough people are persuaded that, whether it be Jews or Muslims, are not the right people to have in New Zealand, the consequences will be hard to swallow.”

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Narev was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to community and education in the 2020 New Year’s Honours.

He lives with his wife, Freda, who is also a Holocaust survivor. The pair are both involved in Holocaust education and have been married for 63 years.

“The only reason Freda survived is because she was hidden by a nice Catholic lady on a farm,” Narev said.

'That was a good person who did something.'