Join the Melbourne Holocaust Museum and the Lodz Committee in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liquidation of the Lodz Ghetto.
The Landsmanshaftn were societies of Jewish immigrants who came from the same town or region in Eastern Europe. They were named for the members’ original birthplaces. They were formed to assist their fellow ‘townspeople’ in settling into their new lives in Australia. This assistance – material, emotional, cultural, and social – helped many new arrivals to begin their acclimatisation to life in their new country.
By 1949, numerous attempts had been made to form a Lodzer Landsmanshaft. In 1953 an initiating committee was formed with the aim of calling a general meeting of Melbourne Jews from the Polish city of Lodz and organising an evening to commemorate the memory of their annihilated community.
Today’s Lodz Committee consists of second and third generation descendants. As the years pass by and we have fewer of our precious survivors with us, we realise the importance of involving the younger generations in helping us remember the Lodzers who called Melbourne their home. Today we remember and honour Jewish Lodz, and its inhabitants, the last embers of a once glorious and vibrant community.
This year’s program includes Honouring six of our Lodz Ghetto survivors with a special candle lighting ceremony. Reflections of 80 years since the Lodz Ghetto Liquidation by Lodz Ghetto Survivors, Mrs Guta Goldstein and Mr Abe Goldberg OAM. Music by Sholem Aleichem Students.
Light refreshments will be provided after the commemoration.
Please join us in partnership with The Shrine of Remembrance and Melbourne Jewish Book Week for an in conversation with author and historian Lucy Adlington and MHM Head of Exhibitions and Programming Dr Breann Fallon.
At the height of the Holocaust, 25 young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp – mainly Jewish women and girls – were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. Drawing on diverse sources including interviews with the last surviving seamstress, The Dressmakers of Auschwitz follows the fates of these brave women.
In this captivating event, author and historian Lucy Adlington will join us virtually from the United Kingdom to uncover these stories. In conversation with the Melbourne Holocaust Museum’s Dr Breann Fallon, Lucy will reveal the bonds of family and friendship that helped these women endure persecution.
Guests will have an opportunity to explore the Shrine’s exhibition Trenches to Runway: Military Influences on Modern Fashion before the talk commences. While the exhibition does not explore the themes in The Dressmakers of Auschwitz, it draws important parallels between the impact of military clothing design and wartime conditions on popular fashion, tracing these influences from the 1870s to the present day.
(viewings of Trenches to Runway from 5pm to 5.50pm)
Please note: The entry to this event is via the Shrine’s Education Foyer.
Image | Courtesy of shalom.edu.au
Lucy Adlington is a writer and social historian, specialising in women’s history in the 1940s. Her recent history, The Dressmakers of Auschwitz – The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive was a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into 22 languages. Her new Holocaust history Four Red Sweaters will be published in March 2025.
Lucy has an extensive collection of vintage and antique garments, spanning 250 years. She runs a series of popular costume presentations called the History Wardrobe, exploring women’s history through clothes. Her fiction titles include the award-winning Young Adult novel The Red Ribbon.
Dr Breann Fallon has been working in the cultural sector, educating on the Holocaust and other human rights issues since 2013. The granddaughter of non-Jewish survivors of Nazi persecution, Breann is focussed on ensuring we communicate the past to ensure a better present and future for all.
Breann also works to spread awareness of human rights issues across multiple platforms. She served on the 2023 Federal Senate Advisory Panel into the Banning of Nazi Symbols, is the host of the 2022 documentary Trafficked to Australia and is a presenter for ABC Radio National’s Religion and Ethics Unit.
As Head of Programming and Exhibitions, Breann leads the strategy and delivery of education, collections and curatorial in order to create meaningful, relevant and lasting experiences for the visitor.
Nearly 80 years after the Holocaust we still face many unanswered and perhaps unanswerable questions: what were the dilemmas faced by Jews who sought to leave Europe? How do we understand the role of ‘bystanders’ and notions of complicity? When atrocities are occurring in the fog of war, how can moral evaluation and imperatives to act be hampered? What questions are raised by the renewed focus on the perpetrators, through representations in film and theatre? How might these complexities be represented in Holocaust museums?
In this event, moderator Jayne Josem will facilitate a conversation exploring the complexities of such moral questions between Deakin University philosopher Associate Professor Patrick Stokes and Associate Professor of Ethics and Impact and Resident Ethicist at the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership, Leslie Cannold.
Please join us for the inaugural event of a new annual series featuring conversations between experts on themes related to Holocaust history and memory. The event honours the contribution made by Jayne Josem to the Melbourne Holocaust Museum over two decades.
Patrick Stokes is associate professor of philosophy at Deakin University, and a writer, radio producer, and media commentator on philosophical matters. He is currently engaged in a three-year Australian Research Council-funded project, ‘Digital Death and Immortality.’ His most recent book is Digital Souls: A Philosophy of Online Death (Bloomsbury, 2021).
Dr Leslie Cannold is the Associate Professor of Ethics and Impact and Resident Ethicist at the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership. A medical ethicist and fiction and non-fiction author who began her career studying under and later working towards Peter Singer, Leslie is known for her ability to translate complex ideas for non-specialist audiences on social media, radio and TV, including a widely watched TEDx talk and repeated appearances on ABC TV’s Compass and Q & A.
Leslie has been twice recognised as one of Australia’s foremost public intellectuals, has won an EVA award for gender-sensitive reporting and was the 2011 Humanist of the Year.
Jayne Josem is CEO of the Cranbourne Foundation, whose purpose is to advance and strengthen the Victorian Jewish community for generations to come.
Former CEO of the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, and long-time Curator and Head of Collections, Jayne was the recipient of the AMaGA Victoria Award for Excellence in 2022. Jayne spear-headed a substantial museum redevelopment project, was lead curator of the permanent exhibition Everybody Had a Name and executive producer of the powerful VR survivor testimony film Walk with Me.
Her work focussed on amplifying the voices of Holocaust survivors and sharing the MHM Collections widely through the physical and digital space, for the purpose of broader civic education. Over the years this has meant adapting and learning different modalities of presentation to attract and engage audiences. Throughout her career she has mentored students and young professionals and delivered papers at conferences and programs to share her knowledge.
Image | Courtesy of Sav Schulman.
Join us at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum for the rare opportunity to hear first-hand from Holocaust survivor Abram Goldberg OAM.
Abe was born in Lodz, Poland in 1924.
Following the Nazi invasion his family was sent to a camp near Krakow; Abe’s older sister fled east.
Abe’s and his parents escaped and return to Lodz, but two of his sisters remained in the camp.
Abe and his parents were imprisoned in Lodz Ghetto and forced to work as labourers. Abe’s father was deported in 1942 and murdered at Chelmno. In 1944 Abe and his mother were sent to Auschwitz, where his mother was gassed upon arrival.
Abe was sent to a series of camps before being liberated in 1945 in Wobbelin.
Only Abe’s older sister survived.
Abe arrived in Australia in 1951.
Join us on the 11th of August to meet Abe and learn about his experiences.
Ever wanted to research your family history and the fate of relatives during the Holocaust but unsure where to begin? Our panel of experts will help you navigate Australian and international Holocaust and genealogical resources. Elise Bath, from the Weiner Library, London, will guide you through the International Tracing Service Archives, Max Wald OAM will open the portal of Jewish Geography through his work with Jewish Gen and other open access sources, and MHM’s Julia Reichstein, Information Manager and Librarian, will present numerous Australian and international resources to assist your research. Hosted by Dr Anna Hirsh, MHM Manager of Collections and Research, this evening is designed to empower and inform.
Elise Bath works at The Wiener Holocaust Library in London, where she manages the UK’s copy of the International Tracing Service (ITS) Archive, using it to carry out in-depth historical research exploring the experiences of individual victims of Nazi persecution, usually on behalf of their families.
She holds an MLitt which analyses gendered experiences in concentration camp memoirs, and an MA in Museum Studies, both from Newcastle University. She is the author of ‘Fertility in the Camps: An Exploration of Female Fertility as Reported in Concentration Camp Memoirs’, German Life and Letters 72:4 (2019), and ‘Discrimination Against Roma and Sinti Survivors of Nazi Persecution’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 71, (2023/3) and has also published on research ethics. Elise is particularly interested in developing a trauma-informed archival and research practice, collaborative working with institutions and communities, and taking a person-centred approach to historical research.
Max Wald OAM is a member of the Australian Jewish Genealogical Society (Vic) and has assisted many Jewish people with their ancestral and Holocaust research. As part of the JRI in Poland, he is a Town Leader for Miedzyrzec, Biala Podlaska and Janow regions, extracting Polish records for about 40 towns. Max’s interest in the Holocaust was formalised during his experience as an interviewer of around 40 Holocaust survivors for the Shoah Foundation project in Melbourne in the 1990s. Max has volunteered at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum for over 15 years in many roles, including interviewing survivors as part of the Phillip Maisel Testimony project.
Julia Reichstein is a third-generation descendant of Holocaust survivors and the Information Manager and Librarian at Melbourne Holocaust Museum
Drawn to the power and impact of both storytelling and history as tools to inform, educate, entertain and inspire,
Julia studied and worked in the fields of children’s services, performing arts and records management, before immersing herself in the world of libraries and earning a Graduate Diploma in Information Management and Systems from Monash University.
A core component of Julia’s role in the MHM Library is equipping researchers and descendants with foundational resources for undertaking Holocaust Family Tracing.
Anna is responsible for managing MHM’s Collections, spanning the Historical Archives and Art Collection, Testimonies, and our Resource Centre & Library. For the past ten years, Anna has worked to improve accessibility to, and enhance the research potential of our Collections.
Anna is an Honorary Fellow at Deakin University and is the co-President of the Australian Association of Jewish Studies.
Please join us for a lecture by Vic Alhadeff OAM.
July 2024 marks 80 years since the destruction of the Jewish communities of Rhodes and the other Dodecanese islands.
The Jews of Greece experienced the best and the worst of humanity. The majority of the community of Salonika was murdered, while the entire community of Zakynthos was saved. The community of Rhodes Island – where Vic Alhadeff’s family originated – was decimated, while a Muslim diplomat rescued some of them. Vic will discuss the Holocaust in Greece, including his father’s remarkable story.
Vic grew up in Zimbabwe.
His parents were born on Rhodes Island, from where 151 Alhadeffs, including his paternal grandparents, were deported to Auschwitz and murdered.
Vic has dedicated his career to championing human rights, is a non-executive director of SBS and the author of two books on South African history.
Please join Linda Royal for the book launch of The Star on the Grave at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.
In 1940, as the Nazis sweep toward Lithuania, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara defies his government and secretly issues visas to fleeing Jewish refugees. After the war, Sugihara is dismissed and disappears into obscurity.
Three decades later, in Australia, Rachel Margol is shocked when her engagement reveals a long-held family secret: she is Jewish. As she grapples with this deception and the dysfunction it has caused, unspoken tragedies from the past begin to come to light. When an opportunity arrives to visit Chiune Sugihara, the man who risked his life to save the Margols during World War II, Rachel becomes determined to meet him. But will a journey to Japan, and the secrets it uncovers, heal the family or fracture them for good?
The Star on the Grave is a powerful and moving novel inspired by the true story of Chiune Sugihara, and the thousands of people – including the author – who owe him their lives.
The Star on the Grave is Linda’s first novel and will be available for purchase at the event.
Linda Margolin Royal was born in Sydney, forever thankful her father and grandparents received life-saving transit visas from Chiune Sugihara in 1940, which enabled them to enter Japan and escape the Holocaust; and ultimately meant they could find a permanent, safe home in Australia in 1941. The remainder of her family numbering in the hundreds were murdered in concentration camps. This work is therefore a labour of love to which she is now devoting her life.
She trained as a graphic designer and then copywriter, and spent 30 years in the advertising industry both in Australia and the US, writing TV, radio and press for major multinationals. Her first instinct was to write her family’s story as a film, which is currently in development; and the book grew organically from this screenplay.
Please join us at Melbourne Holocaust Museum for an evening lecture by Dr Margaret Taft.
The last thirty years has seen an explosion in Holocaust survivor testimony, oral history projects and Holocaust museums and memorials. This contemporary memory boom has led to a false consensus – that victims and survivors never spoke nor wrote of their horrific experiences either during or immediately after the Holocaust, and that this trend was only reversed by the Eichmann trial in 1961. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jewish witnesses to the Holocaust began speaking and writing of their experiences even during the war itself and later in its immediate aftermath. This not only produced a prodigious body of testimonies but led to the development of a new genre of Holocaust memoir. In this lecture, Dr Margaret Taft will speak of the evolution of Holocaust survivor testimony and will consider the ways in which survivor testimony and survivor identity have changed over time.
Image | Courtesy of University Archives & Special Collections, Paul V. Galvin Library, Illinois Institute of Technology.
Dr Margaret Taft is an historian and a research affiliate at the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilization, Monash University. Her interests lie in the development of Holocaust testimony, the retelling of life stories, the cultural history of Yiddish Melbourne and the reconstruction of Jewish life in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Her publications include From Victim to Survivor: The Emergence and Development of the Holocaust Witness 1941-1949; A Second Chance: The Making of Yiddish Melbourne which was shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Community History Awards; Leo and Mina Fink: For the Greater Good, and The Woman in the Photographs, a personal account of her mother’s Holocaust experiences.
Join us at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum for the rare opportunity to hear first-hand from Holocaust survivor Andy Factor OAM
Andy was born in Plauen, Germany in 1924. He was nine year old when the Nazis came to power in Germany.
After the antisemitic laws were introduced in Germany, Andy experienced isolation and humiliation.
Andy and his father were arrested the day after Kristallnacht. He was released after a week, but his father was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp for six weeks.
Thanks to Andy’s relatives in America, his family has received visas to France where they lived for several months during which time the war broke out.
Andy and his family arrived in Australia in 1940.
Join us on the 7th of July to meet Andy and learn about his experiences.
Image | photographed by Simon Shiff
The Melbourne Holocaust Museum invites you to a lecture by Dr Anna Hirsh, Manager of Collections and Research.
How can Jewish cultural and religious heritage and life before the Holocaust be understood now, after so much was destroyed?
The MHM’s new permanent exhibition, Everybody had a Name features an artistic reimagining of Perec Willenberg’s elaborate ceiling mural from the Old Czestochowa Synagogue.
Dr Anna Hirsh, MHM’s Manager of Collections & Research, created a reconstruction of the elaborate mural guided by a handful of photographs of the ceiling, Willenberg’s surviving artworks, and other historical and artistic references.
As part of the museum’s Czestochowa Room, this recreation is a tribute to the beauty and meaning of Europe’s destroyed synagogues, inspiring a visual understanding of pre-war Jewish religion and culture to Australian audiences. In this lecture, Anna will describe the design processes of the recreation, and explore the symbolic imagery embedded in Willenberg’s intricate artwork. Merging the historical, religious and artistic, the ceiling project encapsulates the role of art and heritage in the preservation of memory and Jewish culture.
Mark Ashkanasy, eminent art and architectural photographer and digital artist, will join Anna to describe his contributions to this ceiling project: photographing the work, and his methodologies and philosophies of the digital post production in preparation for its installation.
With an introduction on the Czestochowa Room by Dr Breann Fallon.
Anna is responsible for managing MHM’s Collections, spanning the Historical Archives and Art Collection, Testimonies, and our Resource Centre & Library. For the past ten years, Anna has worked to improve accessibility to, and enhance the research potential of our Collections.
Anna is an Honorary Fellow at Deakin University and is the co-President of the Australian Association of Jewish Studies.
Melbourne Holocaust Museum is excited to host a panel discussion: How to Talk About the Holocaust with Children.
We welcome acclaimed author Morris Gleitzman, Dr Shalya Hirschson a child psychologist and MHM Pedagogy Specialist Lisa Phillips, for an informative conversation moderated by MHM Manager of Adult Education Dr Simon Holloway.
Morris Gleitzman is a bestselling Australian children’s author. His books explore serious and sometimes confronting subjects in humourous and unexpected ways. His titles include Two Weeks With The Queen, Grace, Doubting Thomas, Bumface, Give Peas A Chance, Extra Time, Loyal Creatures, Digging Up Dad and the series Once, Then, After, Soon, Maybe, Now and Always. Morris lives in Sydney and Brisbane, and his books are published in more than twenty countries.
Dr Shalya Hirschson is a psychologist who runs her own private practice in Melbourne.She holds a Doctorate (PhD) and a master’s degree in educational psychology and provides counselling and
assessment to children, adolescents, and adults. Shalya’s special fields of interest include parenting support, social skills, childhood trauma, depression, anxiety, grief, loss, ASD, ADHD, school refusal, learning difficulties and the impact of medical conditions on psychological well-being.Shalya also works with adults experiencing relationship difficulties, life adjustments, grief, anxiety and depression,attachment difficulties and medical conditions.
Image |Jarrod Freedman
Join the Cracow Memorial Committee for the 81st anniversary commemoration of the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto.
Commemorate the tragic events of March 13th and 14th, 1943, when the Kraków ghetto was liquidated.
Honor the memory of the pre-war Jewish community that perished during the Holocaust.
Celebrate the resilience of life over death—the victory of survival and remembrance.
This solemn event serves as a bridge between generations now living in Melbourne, ensuring that the memory of those lost remains alive and that the lessons of history continue to resonate.
What does it mean to be proud of being Jewish? In a post-October 7th world, when so many aspects of Jewish identity are being put under a microscope, some might feel more comfortable keeping their cultural and religious observance private.
In this timely and important conversation, Ben M. Freeman will discuss the importance of being open about one’s Jewishness, the necessity of maintaining Jewish pride, and techniques for inculcating a love of Judaism in one’s children. With increasing levels of antisemitism in Melbourne and around the world, this conversation will also afford an opportunity to consider tactics for navigating hostile situations.
Founder of the modern Jewish Pride movement, a leader, thinker, and educator, Ben M Freeman is the author of the seminal Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People and its follow up, Reclaiming our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride. He is currently working on the finale of his Jewish Pride trilogy, The Jews: An Indigenous People. Educating, inspiring and empowering, his work focuses on Jewish identity and historical and contemporary Jew-hatred. A Holocaust scholar for over fifteen years, Ben came to prominence during the Corbyn Labour Jew-hate crisis in the UK and quickly became one of his generation’s leading Jewish thinkers and voices against Jew-hate. Voted number 8 on the inaugural 25 Young ViZionaries list by the Jerusalem Post and JNF-USA, he is also a Jewish Diplomat for the World Jewish Congress, a Research Fellow for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism Policy and a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.
PhD, Classical Hebrew and Biblical Studies: MA; Ancient History
Simon has a passion for Holocaust education and believes strongly in helping to preserve the legacy of our survivors. In his role he creates and oversees programs to enhance broader community understanding of the Holocaust and its lessons.
For six years, Simon served as a sessional lecturer at the University of Sydney, and as an Education Officer at the Sydney Jewish Museum. Simon has developed and taught programs relating to Nazi racial science, Jewish resistance and the history of the Holocaust. Simon’s research interests concern the identification of references to the biblical and rabbinic literature in documents produced during the war.
The Melbourne Holocaust Museum’s Holckner Family Bnei Mitzvah program is a ninety-minutes workshop designed to connect those undergoing their Bnei Mitzvah to the Holocaust in a meaningful way. The program will allow participants to engage with the experiences of Holocaust survivors, to be inspired by their resilience and the kindness of strangers, as well as to reflect on the significance of their Bnei Mitzvah and what being Jewish means to them.
Parents/guardians do not need to stay for the duration of the program.
The Melbourne Holocaust Museum invites you to a lecture run by Prof. Andrew Markus AO FASSA.
Rabbi Ralph Genende wrote in early March that “since October 7, I have keenly realised that history has apparently reverted back to the most primeval of times… I certainly never expected to feel this way in Australia.” The Executive Council of Australian Jewry documented 662 antisemitic incidents during October and November 2023, reflecting a 738% increase compared to the same period the previous year. Among these incidents were death threats directed at Jewish organisations and individuals, frequent anti-Israel demonstrations extolling violence, pervasive acts of intimidation such as the public release of personal information identifying members of a Jewish Australian WhatsApp group, and the proliferation of toxic content on social media platforms. Notable flashpoints included a convoy of vehicles driven from Sydney’s western suburbs through the centre of Jewish community and a violent street protest in Caulfield, prompting the evacuation of a synagogue. This talk will consider historical contexts to evaluate present-day manifestations of antisemitism, with reference to earlier periods of Australian history and pre-war Europe.
Image | Shutterstock
Andrew Markus is Emeritus Professor in Monash University’s Faculty of Arts and was previously Director of the university’s Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation. Since 2004 he has been a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2021. He is the author or co-author of more than one hundred academic articles, book chapters, reference works, and reports, and of nineteen books, including Australian Race Relations, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights, and A Second Chance: A History of Yiddish Melbourne.
He has played a leading role in two national surveys of the Jewish community, Gen08 and Gen17, and was the senior researcher on the Scanlon Foundation social cohesion surveys from 2007 to 2021.
On 16 May, MHM Manager of Adult Education Dr Simon Holloway will present a lecture in collabration with B’nai B’rith, exploring the Holocaust experience for Jewish communities living in Hungary.
In 1944, the Jewish communities of Hungary made up some of the last remaining Jews in all of Axis-controlled Europe. The tragic story of their annihilation is all the more macabre when one considers that it happened under the gaze of the entire world, who knew what deportation meant. In this lecture, coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the deportations from Hungary, we will explore the peculiar situation faced by Hungarian Jews in light of their prewar experiences, the means by which they were so rapidly destroyed, and some of the heroic attempts made at the 11th hour to rescue them.
Image | A memorial to the murdered Jews in Hungary, on the Danube river, Hungary.
PhD, Classical Hebrew and Biblical Studies: MA; Ancient History
Simon has a passion for Holocaust education and believes strongly in helping to preserve the legacy of our survivors. In his role he creates and oversees programs to enhance broader community understanding of the Holocaust and its lessons.
For six years, Simon served as a sessional lecturer at the University of Sydney, and as an Education Officer at the Sydney Jewish Museum. Simon has developed and taught programs relating to Nazi racial science, Jewish resistance and the history of the Holocaust. Simon’s research interests concern the identification of references to the biblical and rabbinic literature in documents produced during the war.
Join us at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum for the rare opportunity to hear first-hand from Holocaust survivor Guta Goldstein.
Guta was born in Lodz, Poland in 1930. She was nine years old when the Germans invaded Poland.
Guta, her sister, and father were forced into the Lodz Ghetto. Both her sister and father died of illness.
on 14 August 1944 Guta was transported to Auschwitz, where her aunt and cousin were sent to the gas chambers on arrival.
In September Guta and her remaining cousins were transferred to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Guta was eventually sent to the labour camp of Mehltheuer and was liberated by the US army in April 1945.
Guta arrived to Australia in 1949.
We invite you to join us for the commemoration of Yom HaShoah on Monday 6 May 2024.
This year we will host a panel discussion moderated by MHM CEO Dr Steven Cooke. We look forward to hearing from our three panellists, Rachelle Unreich, Anita Lester and Adam Butt, who will share their lived and professional experience of taking on the custodianship of memory. The evening will explore how we can all carry the lessons of the Holocaust into the future and will seek to understand how, in a world threatened by increasing misinformation, distortion and denial, we can bring truth to the forefront.
Image | Simon Shiff
PhD, University of Bristol
Dr Steven Cooke has over 30 years’ experience in the cultural heritage sector across both museums and academia. An internationally recognised expert on the memorialisation of the Holocaust, Steven has published extensively on both the historical evolution of Holocaust museums and memorials, and new approaches to sharing Holocaust survivor testimony. His exceptional work has led the Australian Government to appoint him to the Australian delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, where he represents Australia on the Memorials and Museums Working Group.
From 2002 until 2011 Steven held leadership positions at some of Australia’s most significant cultural heritage sites, including the Shrine of Remembrance. From there, he transitioned into academia where he worked at Deakin University as an Associate Professor and Course Director for the Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies postgraduate programs, helping inspire the next generation of museum professionals.
In 2020 he was the lead investigator on the landmark Gandel Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness in Australia Survey.
Steven believes passionately about the role Holocaust museums can play in educating the whole community about the dangers of racism and antisemitism and in working towards a more cohesive and respectful society.
Rachelle Unreich started her journalism career when she was completing her Arts/Law degrees at Monash University. In addition to studying writing at UCLA, she has lived in New York, Los Angeles, Sydney and Melbourne. She has been a journalist for 38 years, writing cover stories for The Age, Harper’s Bazaar, marie claire, Rolling Stone and others, and has had regular columns in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Herald Sun and Elle magazine. Her work has appeared extensively in Australia, the US, UK and South-East Asia. She currently lives in Melbourne. A Brilliant Life is her debut.
Anita Lester, a multidisciplinary artist from Melbourne, Australia, is celebrated not only for her music but also as an award-winning painter, filmmaker, poet, and illustrator.
She gained recognition through her solo EP “Erato,” released in March 2020 amidst uncertain times. Tracks such as “Wrong Time” and her cover of Leonard Cohen’s “You Want it Darker” found resonance, featuring in film and television, including ‘The Walking Dead’. Her debut album ‘The Clown’, released in March 2023.
In the realm of film, her short ‘Noch Am Leben (I’m Still Alive)’ garnered acclaim at over 50 festivals worldwide, becoming a fixture in Holocaust and Jewish museums globally. Her debut feature ‘Song of Songs’, announced in 2023, further solidifies her impact on cinema.
Anita’s paintings, characterized by their technical skill and mythological themes, have earned praise, with notable works including a portrait of Flea from the ‘Red Hot Chili Peppers’ and a series depicting Holocaust survivors currently set for exhibit in 2025.
Her literary contributions extend to poetry, storytelling, and collaborations such as Arnold Zabel’s upcoming children’s book ‘The Glass Horse of Venice’, set for release in 2024.
Anita Lester’s art is deeply rooted in storytelling, intertwining themes of love, longing, hope, and Jewish culture across her various creative endeavors.
Adam Butt is a barrister who specializes in international arbitration, commercial litigation and human rights law. He has acted on numerous international investment and commercial arbitrations with seats in Europe, Asia, Australia, North America and the Caribbean. He acts on complex human rights and commercial cases and regularly leads teams in Federal and state Supreme Courts, in cases both for and against the Crown. Adam has won major native title and Aboriginal land claim disputes across Australia, in addition to significant claims brought under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth). This has included claims concerning antisemitism including the Brighton Secondary case, Kaplan v State of Victoria. Currently Adam acts on several cases which involve racial discrimination and related matters, including claims concerning antisemitism and issues of discrimination against Indigenous Australians. During 2020 to 2023, Adam was a finalist each year in Australia’s Lawyers Weekly Barrister of the Year Award, including winning the Award in 2021. Adam’s late grandmother, Rose Butt, was one of the founding volunteer of the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.
