ADC slams council for Holocaust analogy
A Melbourne council has voted not to celebrate Australia Day with one councillor comparing the event with the Holocaust.
Sue Bolton Photo: Facebook
The Australian has quoted Social Alliance councillor Sue Bolton being proud that the Moreland Council in Melbourne’s inner-north had taken “a big step forward” in recognising that January 26 marked the invasion and genocide of Australia’s indigenous people.
Sue Bolton posted on Facebook: “It is significant to recognise that the continent was invaded by the British and stop recognising the date at the beginning of that invasion as “Australia Day”. What happened to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from that date was a holocaust. Celebrating that date would be like celebrating the Nazi holocaust as Germany Day. It is absolutely reprehensible.”
Dvir Abramovich chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission said: “With this thoughtless and insulting remark, Cr Sue Bolton has tainted this important debate, which demands civility and respect for different perspectives, and crossed so many red lines I stopped counting. When will elected officials like Ms Bolton understand that is never acceptable to abuse and manipulate the Holocaust in an effort to beat down and demonise her opponents, score cheap political points and publicise her cause .There is no comparison between Australia Day and the systemised, industrialised annihilation of millions of innocents by Hitler’s infrastructure of death.
Australians celebrating January 26th are not celebrating the ‘Final Solution’, or the terrifying death camps, or the gas chambers of Auschwitz, where 1.5 million people were murdered. In a month when we reflect on the 76th anniversary of Babi Yar, when more than 33,000 Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis and their collaborators in less than 48 hours, this inappropriate analogy not only does a disservice to the historical record, but is also is an insult to the victims, the survivors, and to those diggers who sacrificed their lives in the battle to defeat the Third Reich. We call on Ms Bolton to apologise and to pledge to never again exploit and denigrate the Holocaust so as to advance her agenda.”
A commenter on Sue Bolton’s Facebook wrote: ” Time you learnt some history. Maybe go visit Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to learn something about the Holocaust.
To make a comparison of that with Australian history just proves how ignorance, stupidity and bigotry overrides any genuine dialogue.”
Moreland Mayor Helen Davidson has distanced herself from Sue Bolton’s Holocaust analogy.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry and The Jewish Community Council of Victoria declined to comment.
