Vale Olga
Her last months on earth were spent during a time that has seen hatred against Jews explode – a sad fact that she was acutely aware of.
The death of Holocaust survivor Olga Horak is tragic.
Her passing is a huge loss to our community, a community she enriched with her presence and contributions – as a survivor guide at the Sydney Jewish Museum where she educated thousands, as an educator, a speaker, an author and an artist.
Naturally, the loss to her family is even more profound.
It is equally a tragedy, that having lived though the darkest time for world Jewry, not only didn’t she live to see a time when antisemitism had been eradicated, but far from it, her last months on earth were spent during a time that has seen hatred against Jews explode – a sad fact that she was acutely aware of.
For someone who was involved with the Sydney Jewish Museum from its inception in 1992 and who continued to selflessly volunteer there until her last days to educate about where antisemitism leads, Olga deserved better. Wider Australian society has sadly failed her.
Perhaps it is small comfort that she lived in NSW and not Victoria, which special envoy Jillian Segal last week said has been the worst state in Australia for antisemitism.
We are getting closer and closer to the day when we will not have any living survivors left to share their stories. But especially now, we cannot let the Holocaust become merely history rather than living memory.
We cannot let its lessons continue to go unlearned. Hate against Jews has no place in tolerant, multicultural Australia.
It is the first sign of wider societal decay, which makes it everyone’s problem.
Combatting the problem starts from the top, and we must demand better from our politicians.
We need better from our federal and state institutions. We need better from heads of civil society. We need better from our universities.
We need better from a federal government on whose watch this has festered and whose solution appears to have been appointing someone else to deal with the problem as its own rhetoric on the Israel-Hamas war adds to it.
They all owe it to Olga Horak to do better. And we owe it to Olga, her children and grandchildren – and all our grandchildren – to make sure they do.
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