Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Nazi Germany

  • AUSTRALIA

    The Border Force Act's disquieting parallels

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 July 2015
    32 Comments

    On July 1 the Australian Border Force Act 2015 became law. Detention centre staff are now forbidden to speak about human rights abuses, with a two year jail penalty applying. It is perhaps appropriate to recall the secrecy of the security apparatus of Stalinist Russia, Apartheid South Africa, and Chile and Argentina under the Generals, where victims were denigrated and information prevented from leaking out.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    ABC apology was the error of judgment in Q&A affair

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 29 June 2015
    58 Comments

    It is particularly dangerous for a Prime Minister to demand that public institutions or private citizens take a stand on complex issues. To take a stand for something means that you take a stand against something else. In the Q&A case, to take a stand means to condemn Zakky Mallah. From there it is a short slide to standing for 'genuine' Australians against Muslim Australians. 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Seeking restitution for Nazi art theft

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 28 May 2015
    4 Comments

    Maria's aunt was the subject of one of Austria's most famous artworks, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, by the painter Gustav Klimt, which was stolen from Maria's family by the Nazis during the Second World War. Maria's story raises questions about the means and consequences of individuals and nations coming to terms with difficult histories, and of what constitutes 'ownership' of cultural artefacts with a high level of national significance.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    An ignoble boycott calculated to hurt Russia

    • Tony Kevin
    • 07 May 2015
    11 Comments

    On Saturday, a Victory Parade will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the final defeat of Fascist Germany. It is a fitting tribute to the heroism of the Russian people for their huge sacrifices and sufferings in a common cause with the west. Many leaders including US President George W. Bush attended the 60th, but a specious rationale is dictating a boycott this time around.

    READ MORE
  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    Flawed thinking that allows us to abuse animals

    • Valerie Wangnet
    • 24 September 2014
    14 Comments

    In Ancient Greece, Hippocrates used the term 'hysteria' to account for emotional instability and mental illness in women. This is a diagnosis that survived up until the first sparks of the women's suffrage movement in mid–19th century. In the case of food animals, we are told that they cannot think, suffer or feel pain.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Border control shake-up takes us into dangerous waters

    • Tony Kevin
    • 13 May 2014
    46 Comments

    Scott Morrison has announced the formation of a powerful new paramilitary force with its own ideology, training and rank structure, answerable only to an immigration minister. There is a disturbing comparison that may be drawn between this new agency, apparently with no legal or constitutional checks and balances outside itself, and the Schutzstaffel security service established by Hitler and answerable only to him as leader.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Dumb dealings in Nazi art war

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 13 March 2014
    1 Comment

    'If you destroy their history, you destroy their achievements and it's as if they never existed,' implores art scholar Frank Stokes. He subsequently leads a team of academics and artisans into World War II Germany on a mission to rescue important works of art from the Nazis. Great art possesses the power to move and inspire, and to document and critique a culture. But is the deadly mission worth the risk to life?

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Mistaken for Jewish in cold, grand Moscow

    • Howard Willis
    • 19 February 2014
    6 Comments

    On the occasions I got into detailed discussions with strangers in Moscow, a pattern emerged. Saying I was Australian prompted a polite request for clarification: 'But your ancestry?' The reply that I was fifth-generation Australian was treated as an evasion, or met with the assumption that my ancestors were 'bandits'. Generally, Muscovites took a second look at me and the box they ticked was 'Jew'.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Vegemite interrogation on the Prague night train

    • Anne M. Carson
    • 19 February 2013

    Cash-strapped, post midnight. Transport police rifle our rucksacks, suspicious of backpackers. One prises open my Kodak canister, sniffs, says 'ach!', fires Czech questions at me. 'Vegemite fur frustuck,' I say, trying to convince Vegemite is not hash resin. I smile the smile of someone who doesn't know how bad it can get.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Disabled is not a dirty word

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 21 September 2012

    After losing a bet, a gawky teenager asks a girl with a physical disability out on a date, and is humiliated when she rejects him. A deaf Jewish girl is abused in Nazi Germany. A man has a stroke and begins the hard journey back to the land of words. This is no pity party, but a challenge to engage in stories that enhance empathy.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    To catch a despot

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 30 April 2012
    4 Comments

    Former Liberian president Charles Taylor's conviction by an international criminal court for crimes against humanity is the first conviction of a head of state since World War II. It does little to change the fact that it remains notoriously difficult to bring heads of state to trial for grave crimes.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Breaking the 'boat people' deadlock

    • Lyn Bender
    • 30 January 2012
    37 Comments

    In his book They Thought They Were Free, Milton Mayor writes of 'the slow lobster boil of erosion of freedom' in Nazi Germany. As a daughter of Jewish refugees I know what this entails. The same process confronts asylum seekers today if we do not begin from a presumption of rights and humanity. 

    READ MORE