Keeping memory alive

A 98-year-old survivor who watched her Jewish school in Berlin burn delivered the emotional centrepiece of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies 2026 Kristallnacht Commemoration at Moriah College on Monday night.

Edel Fischer recalled being sent to school on November 9, 1938. “I saw synagogues, shops, and homes burning,” she said. “My own Jewish school – and it was brand new – was alight.”

Unable at first to find a country that would take in Jewish refugees, her father managed to obtain limited Australian permits via the British embassy just in time.

“Thank you, Papa – you saved our lives,” Fischer said. Her message was clear: “This generation – please remember to tell your children and their children about that terrible time. It must not be forgotten.”

She then lit a memorial candle with 10-year-old Moriah schoolgirl Stevie Benjamin.

Keynote speaker Professor Henry Brodaty, the 2026 Senior Australian of the Year, spoke of his parents fleeing Warsaw and Lutsk for Soviet labour camps – their infant daughter dying during the journey – and returning to find no other relatives had survived.

He was born in a displaced persons camp near Munich, and arrived in Sydney aged 13 months, his family penniless.

His wife Caroline’s father survived three concentration camps.

“As numbers of Holocaust survivors diminish, we must ensure that we remember them and pass on those memories to our children,” Brodaty said.

Citing the Bondi terror attack, recent shule firebombings in Australia, and a neo-Nazis rally outside NSW Parliament, he concluded, “We must learn the lessons of the Holocaust, and of Kristallnacht, to ensure it does not happen again.”

The event’s theme, keeping memory alive, was explored further by theatre producer Anton Berezin and composer Sam Weiss, and music was performed by Ben Adler, Paul Khoder and Moriah’s primary school choir.