Symcha Binem (Bono) Wiener

Symcha Binem (Bono) Wiener, one of the founders and a co-president of the Jewish Holocaust Museum and Research Centre (MHM), was born in Lodz, Poland. As a youth he was politically active in the Jewish Labour Bund. During the war, while incarcerated in the Lodz Ghetto, he was active in the Jewish underground and took on a leadership role in the resistance. Both his parents perished in the Lodz Ghetto, and when it was liquidated Bono was deported to Auschwitz. From there he was sent to the Mauthausen and Gusen labour camps. After liberation he was reunited with his brother Pinches and they immigrated to Australia in 1950.

A successful businessman, Bono continued his political activism and community leadership in Melbourne, particularly as President of the Bund and Director of the Jewish Welfare Society, as one of the founders of Sholem Aleichem School and as an inspirational member of numerous other Jewish organisations.

Research and exhibits relating to ghettos, in particular, the Lodz Ghetto, kindly supported by the Late Bono Wiener Bequest.