Making her Mark on racism
HOLOCAUST survivor Eva Marks became both the first-ever Australian and first-ever female to receive the prestigious Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award at a ceremony at Beth Weizmann last weekend.
HOLOCAUST survivor Eva Marks became both the first-ever Australian and first-ever female to receive the prestigious Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award at a ceremony at Beth Weizmann last weekend.
More than 200 people, including Austrian and Israeli dignitaries, community leaders and friends, attended the evening, where Marks was honoured for having shown special endeavours in combating racism of any kind and keeping alive the memory of the Holocaust.
In accepting the award, presented annually by the Austrian Service Abroad, Marks acknowledged the 63 members of her family and the millions of others killed in the Shoah.
“I wished, and wish, to get across the message of the urgent and continuous need for tolerance and understanding,” she said, adding that she hoped her work, talks and writings had demonstrated the atrocities of the war and proved it was possible to make a rewarding life after such horrendous events.
Speakers on the night included Austrian Ambassador to Australia Dr Hannas Porias, Austrian Service Abroad’s Daniel Schuster, Einat Weiss, spokesperson for the Israel Embassy in Canberra, Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby, historian Dr Paul Bartrop and survivor Saba Feniger.
Letters from the president of the Austrian Parliament, Barbara Prammer, and Prime Minister Julia Gillard were also read out.
In congratulating Marks on the award, Gillard called her a “torchbearer for the victims and survivors of World War II” and acknowledged her efforts at the Jewish Museum of Australia, Jewish Holocaust Centre and as founding member of the World Federation of Child Survivors of the Holocaust in Melbourne.
Born in Vienna, Marks spent six years in Russian and Siberian gulags, being released in 1947 and arriving in Australia in 1949.
AJN STAFF
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