When you’re Jewish, there’s no escaping anti-Semitism

The feral behaviour of far-right extremists in plain sight over the weekend has rightly shocked the nation, but sadly no one in the Jewish community is surprised by it at all, writes Darren Levin.

When you’re a Jewish kid at a Jewish school in one of the largest Holocaust survivor communities in the world, the concentration camps aren’t just the setting for a Roberto Benigni film.

They’re a tangible history lesson invoked in classrooms by teachers whose parents likely survived the hells of Auschwitz, or regularly by survivors themselves.

I’ll never forget these frail but impossibly brave people, numbers still imprinted on their arms, recounting how they survived Hitler’s ovens by hiding in a drainpipe or being pushed into the right line at the right time.

There was no such thing as too young to be exposed to the images of bodies piled up in ditches or children in striped pyjamas, emaciated and malnourished, but with piercing fearful eyes and features that looked just like yours.

When you’re Jewish the Holocaust is everywhere, and there’s no escaping it. I remember once telling one of my teachers — whose own parents survived Auschwitz — I was “sick of hearing about the f***king Holocaust”. A detention seemed like a soft punishment for such a disrespectful act.

A number of far-Right extremists were seen giving Nazi salutes at the St Kilda rallies held over the weekend. Picture: ABC News

It was only later that I understood the purpose behind all this grim repetition.

Never drop your guard. Never get too comfortable. Never turn a blind eye to hate. Never ever again.

It’s why the images of sieg heils and SS helmets and Fraktur fonts on St Kilda beach of all places is so — for lack of a better word — triggering for Jews. The fact it happened right down the road from a former “home away from home” for many survivors and immigrants — the sadly defunct Cafe Scheherazade — will likely be glossed over in most news reports.

It was offensive and disturbing and, yes, triggering. But it was nothing new.

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My first job out of uni was as a reporter for the 124-year-old community newspaper The Australian Jewish News.

I spent five years there writing a lot about bar mitzvahs and under-sevens table tennis tournaments, but few months went by when there wasn’t some swastika daubing incident at a Jewish institution, gravesite, synagogue or school.

A swastika was found outside a Jewish aged-care facility in Caulfield over the weekend. A number of residents have relatives that died in the holocaust. Picture: supplied

In most cases the perpetrators were never caught, leaving us only to imagine what sort of aggressors were lurking in the shadows. Maybe they had shaved heads and jackboots,

like Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper? Or maybe they just looked like that quiet IT guy that made a couple unkosher comments after knock-off drinks but largely kept to himself? That theory was much more frightening.

Now they have a visible presence, as was the case on Saturday’s far-right rally, emboldened by loud voices from the right and legitimated by a senator who repurposed the terminology of the Third Reich during his maiden speech in parliament.

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Fraser Anning may claim he was unaware of the impact of those words, but the vision of him with one of the organisers — a convicted petty criminal who once suggested a portrait of Hitler be hung in every classroom — casts that speech in a new light. (I won’t mention his name because he’s had enough column inches than he ever deserved.)

Senator Anning used taxpayer money to fund this trip all under the guise of “protecting” an electorate he extracted an embarrassing 19 primary votes from. But what his or any other electorate really needs protection from is the scourge of Neo-Nazism that we saw in plain view on Saturday afternoon.

Queensland Senator Fraser Anning travelled to Melbourne to attend the weekend rally under the guise of work purposes. Picture: AAP/Kenji Wardenclyffe

As an irreligious Jewish person of caucasian appearance I am cloaked by my whiteness. I don’t live in daily fear of personal attack. The same can’t be said for the young African boys harassed on the beach late last year by the organisers of this rally or the siblings attacked in North Caulfield for wearing religious Jewish garb last May.

The more visible symbols of Melbourne’s Jewish community — our synagogues, centres and organisations — are under armed daily protection or surveillance. But it doesn’t provide an antidote to a poisoned mind or really diminish the threat.

On the same day as the rally it emerged that black-and-white swastikas were plastered on the front gates of a Jewish home for the elderly filled with people who survived Hitler’s demented horror. The difference this time is they left a calling card.

So perhaps Senator Anning should use his next taxpayer funded trip to Melbourne for something actually useful. At the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Elsternwick survivor guides can tell him first-hand where fraternising with fascists really leads.

Darren Levin is a columnist for RendezView.com.au.