Country NSW Celebrating First Nations and a Multi cultural nation
“If not us, then who? If not now, then when?” Celebrating Country NSW.
The Australia Day Council sends Ambassadors across NSW to Reflect, Respect, Celebrate.
Country NSW is courageous. They have and are fighting floods and fire. Bravery, again and again. Communities help each other. So many are heroes here, volunteering, SES, Rural Fire brigades saving livestock, properties and lives. But now country NSW has gone further.
A story told by Ambassador Susanne Gervay OAM exemplifies country NSW. Nathan Cohen made home in Tamworth. In a two-wheeled cart drawn by two sweating horses who jolted over the stony Peel River, he reached Tamworth’s Peel Street. The cart was the first to come here. It took three days to travel the one hundred and eighty-mile journey. There was cheering outside the store of Cohen & Levy. In 1868, Nathan Cohen opened his own business as an auctioneer and estate agent. By 1870 he established a soap works, was foundation director of the Tamworth Permanent Mutual Benefit Building Society and was an active office-bearer for the Tamworth Hospital. He associated with every organisation which worked for the benefit of Tamworth and its citizens. The Tamworth Municipal Council was formed in 1876, and Nathan was an inaugural member of the first Council, becoming mayor in 1882 and 1883. Nathan also served as President of the Tamworth Cricket Club, and trustee of the Jockey Club. When Nathan passed away at 68, life stopped. All shops were closed in his honour. Nathan was a good man, generous and compassionate, a source of great moral, commercial and social strength, and a leader. He made his home here. He was proudly Australian and Jewish.
Thankyou to the incredible people of Tamworth and country NSW for your support against terrorism at Bondi Beach. You centred on unity, grief, and our nation. Community leaders called for solidarity and joined Australia in national mourning for Jewish communities and everyone one of us.
Martin Niemöller a German Lutheran pastor and theologian who was anti-Communist, anti-semite and supported Adolf Hitler. But when Hitler rose to power he knew Hitler was evil. Then he preached against him and was sent to a concentration camp. Saved by the allies. He returned to advocate for penance and reconciliation for the German people. He writes:-
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Country Australia is speaking now. Australians pledge their allegiance to our democratic multi-cultural nation irrespective of faith, race, gender.
At the memorial service at Bondi Beach NSW Premier Chris Mimms’ said “The thousands who jumped on a surfboard last Friday and paddled past the breakers to show solidarity to this community. The hundreds of first responders, including the police, the paramedics, Surf Life Savers who ran straight into danger to protect our community. The 40,000 people who've given blood as an act of public service, the flowers at the Pavilion, the red and yellow Surf Life Saving army. The candles, the tears – all acts large and small.”
However the deep vein of antisemitic hate is not us. History shows us that antisemitism builds, starting with a phrase or a chant, then migrating to the air waves, then social media today. Then graffiti on Jewish places of worship and homes, burning child care centres, armed guards safeguarding children in Jewish schools, then arson and now murder. Today ‘hate’ laws have been legislated.
Racism, misogyny, antisemitism, domestic violence are dark parts of community. But Susanne Gervay OAM is a writer and challenges prejudices as she writes for justice from bullying, disability, racism, feminism, to consent for young people and adults. Inspired by her parents and their courage. She refuses to lose hope. She believes in Australia as it faces the huge battle of antisemitism.
Her family is like many refugee and migrant families. They lived through the horror of Nazism, the Holocaust, communism and the political crisis in their countries. Her mother Veronika studied with the first violinist at The Budapest Symphony Orchestra. Her father was a Professor at the university. She was beautiful. Her life was opera, theatre, balls. Even Zsa Zsa Gabor danced as she danced in the grand halls. Imagine Zsa Zsa is a Taylor Swift. Her father Zoltan was different - a farmer and a trader, who worked and loved the land.
Zoltan was taken prisoner. Soon after, his mother, sisters and their babies were captured forced into railway cattle trucks in inhuman conditions to be taken to Auschwitz. Her father was in forced labour on the Eastern front in Russia. The guards killed for sport. Most of the ‘boys’ died from torture, starvation, inability to go on. Her father was a farmer and he understood the land and how to survive and help others survive. The doctors, accountants, teachers, shopkeepers did not make it. They were shot or died frozen in the snow. Her father could shoe the horses, drive the cart when the tanks broke down in mud. He was of use. He was kicked by a horse and unconscious and when he woke up in a hospital. He knew he had to escape. He went into hiding working for the Underground helping to create illegal Swiss passports, setting up illegal houses hiding orphaned children, allocating medicine. There was a special building called the Glass House because it produced glass for Hungary. Closed and abandoned, the Swiss Vice-Consul Karl Lutz put the Swiss flag on it. It became a safe house for the Jewish population of the city. It was two storeys with an attic. 3000 men, women and children huddled there. The bed bunks were five levels and people slept in shifts. There was one bathroom and one kitchen.
Susanne’s family lived through war, communism, food shortages, human rights abuses. They made that frightening decision to escape Hungary. They left everything they knew – family, friends, home, culture, language. They escaped across the dangerous mine fields with their small son to a refugee camp in Austria. There they waited for a long time for a country to take them. Australia did.
Her parents did not talk about the past, but sometimes her father revealed a memory. She was seven. He was taking food to the children’s house. The door was open and he looked for the children, but they were gone. ‘Where are the children’ Susanne asked him. He never answered. Much later, she understood that the children had been taken by the soldiers and did not live.
She saw her father work long hours in the car factory; mother work in the clothing factory and raise their 3 children. They spoke with heavy accents, missed their culture, placed heavy expectations on their children seeking to heal from the political terrors. However the driving force in their lives was their belief in family, love and the freedoms offered by Australia and the extraordinary gift to rebuild their lives with ‘Freedom from Fear’. They became proud Australian citizens as soon as they could.
Susanne’s parents began life in one room sleeping on a mattress with my 3 year old brother in Bondi Beach boarding house. Within one generation, through hard work and the opportunities offered by Australia, they built their life again. How proud would they have been when Susanne stood in our Government House overlooking Sydney Harbour. She could hardly breathe when she received an Order of Australia. She accepted it for herself, her courageous parents and for every Australian who has made home here.
Susanne’s books are Australian stories but also universal stories published in many countries. She wrote ‘Heroes of the Secret Underground’ to honour her parents and bring heroism and courage into the life of young people and old. ‘We are brave. We are Australian.’
Susanne says. “We must continue to empower our youth and who we are to oppose the ongoing spread of hatred and bigotry. I write about the essence of humanity and you give me the courage to continue.”
The words of King Charles echo through Australia now:-
“The lessons of the Holocaust are searingly relevant to this day. More than eighty years after the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, hatred and intolerance still lurk in the human heart, still tell new lies, adopt new disguises, and still seek new victims.”
Australians have chosen to stand with communities against flood and fire and now against terrorism.
Thankyou
BIO Susanne Gervay
Awarded Lifetime Social Justice Literature Award by the International Literacy Association, nominated for the Astrid Ingrid Memorial Award and Order of Australia for children’s literature, Susanne Gervay’s recognized for her award winning youth literature from pre-school to young adult novels on social justice. She engages young people in complex issues from multiculturalism, disability to peace. The I Am Jack books are definitive novels on school bullying, adapted into a play by Monkey Baa Theatre, touring Australian and US theatres. Butterflies is recognized as outstanding youth literature on disability. Parrot Palace is a junior fiction on inclusion. Susanne’s picture books include Elephants Have Wings (peace),The Boy in the Big Blue Glasses (vision), Gracie & Josh (disability), Ships in the Field (refugees). Heroes of the Secret Underground inspired by real events in WW11, like a thriller reaching into the courage of kids as they face the past received a Crystal Kite Award. https://sgervay.com
Contact:-
FEM – https://flyingelephant.com.au
Phone: 0413 050 22; [email protected]
Australia Day Council ADCC [email protected]
Contact details:
FEM – https://flyingelephant.com.au
Phone: 0413 050 22; [email protected]
Australia Day Council ADCC [email protected]
