‘I did not mention the Holocaust’: Julian Burnside does not regret sharing Peter Dutton-Nazi image

Julian Burnside has agreed to meet with Holocaust survivors, but says he doesn’t regret sharing a Peter Dutton-Nazi photo.

Barrister Julian Burnside, who shared a picture of Peter Dutton dressed as a Nazi. Picture: Peter Ristevski.

Moshe Fiszman was one of only three people from his 200-strong Jewish family to survive the Holocaust. And now he wants to educate one of Australia’s most famous lawyers about the crimes of the Nazis.

Julian Burnside has agreed to meet with Holocaust survivors including Mr Fiszman after he was condemned for sharing a picture on Twitter of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton dressed as a Nazi.

Mr Burnside, a prominent barrister, has apologised to anyone who was offended by the picture he retweeted but told The Australian he still did not regret the Dutton-Nazi photo he shared.

“I did not mention the Holocaust. My concern is to remind people that the way the Nazis thought, and in particular the way they distorted public opinion to encourage fear and hatred of Jews, is worth remembering these days,” he said.

“I am sorry to have upset people who thought, mistakenly, that I was referring to the Holocaust in my retweet. I was not.”

Mr Burnside said that he was troubled that there was “so much attention to the misunderstanding” and not enough attention to what he called the “real danger associated with the Peter Dutton style of thinking.”

Mr Burnside said it was “common courtesy” and a wish to meet people who remember the lead-up to the Holocaust that drove him to accept Jewish group the Anti-Defamation Commission’s invitation to meet survivors like Mr Fizsman.

“I hope he will have a recollection of the way anti-Semitism developed during the 1930s,” he said.

Mr Fiszman, 96, in Melbourne’s south said he wanted to tell Mr Burnside not to use the Nazis that killed his family as a political prop.

“My family was murdered with poisonous gas ... I watched babies being torn out of their mothers’ arms and thrown into fires,” he said.

“No Australian can be compared to Nazism ... us few survivors are very upset about this.”

Mr Fiszman was born in Poland and spent five and a half years in various Nazi death camps including Auschwitz and Dachau where he was eventually saved in May 1945. He still remembers the two numbers that substituted for his name.

Holocaust survivor Moshe Fiszman. Picture: Aaron Francis.

He wishes to take Mr Burnside on a tour of Melbourne’s Holocaust Remembrance Museum where the 96 year-old still works as a tour guide for students.

“I must think Mr Burnside does not really understand the Holocaust. He is a smart man, a man with a rich vocabulary,” Mr Fiszman said.

“A man with such a rich vocabulary should not have to use the Nazis as a prop ... no one should do that.”

The Australian understands Mr Burnside has also faced pressure from his colleagues with at least one Jewish lawyer asking the barrister privately to apologise for the Dutton retweet.

Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich organised the meeting, to be held on a yet-to-be confirmed date, and thanked Mr Burnside for taking up his invitation.

Julian Burnside’s tweet regarding Peter Dutton.

“We are appreciative that Mr Burnside accepted our invitation, and hope that after hearing Moshe Fiszman’s inspiring story of courage and survival, that he understands the pain that he has caused,” he said.

“There is never any excuse for trivialising and diminishing the true meaning of the Holocaust with insensitive Nazi comparisons.”