My Oma and Opa fled the Holocaust, so I live. Let’s stop the rise of Australia’s neo-Nazis

My father’s grandparents, Oma and Opa, escaped the Holocaust just two generations ago as German Jewish teenagers. I live to tell their stories because they escaped white supremacy and oppression and were able to build a life together in a country that felt safe. Other members of our family were not so lucky. My Opa’s mother, brother, sister-in-law, and children died in Auschwitz. Oma’s father died in Theresienstadt concentration camp and her mother died in Auschwitz.

The neo-Nazi demonstration outside the NSW Parliament last Saturday was horrific.

For me, both as a descendant of Holocaust survivors and as a gay woman, the scariest part of this demonstration was not that it was outside my workplace, where I am an upper house member and an important symbol of democracy, but that we were at a moment in Australian history when neo-Nazis had the confidence to bare their faces publicly in broad daylight.

I first reported threats from neo-Nazis in my community to Albury police in my capacity as a local councilor in 2018. They threatened me because I condemned their activities, including the recruitment of new members. Last year I was at the Albury pride film night which was threatened and crashed by 30 masked neo-Nazis. They have since demonstrated at war memorials, as they did at parliament on Saturday. Corowa and Albury. They make fun of veterans of the world wars in which Australian soldiers fought against fascism.

The slogan displayed on Saturday was brazenly antisemitic, but the Nazis didn’t come just for the Jews. The Nazis came for people with disabilities, people with opposing political views, LGBTQ people, and other minority groups.

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Protests are a regular and healthy occurrence outside parliament and in other civic spaces. Protests often call for the enactment or repeal of a particular policy or law. A particularly malicious approach could aim to cause a politician to lose his seat. But this is different; Neo-Nazis want me and people like me to not exist.

I don’t always agree with my political colleagues in the upper house, but there are rare and inspiring occasions when we can come together on an issue. This week, I introduced a motion to recognize the significant threat that neo-Nazism and white supremacy pose to a wide range of communities in NSW, including Jewish communities, people of color, First Nations people, people with disabilities, women and LGBTQ communities. This was resoundingly supported in party circles.

We realized that rising racism and inequality amid the housing and cost of living crisis has allowed far-right extremist groups to thrive by scapegoating marginalized people. We called on the government to urgently tackle racism and inequality and implement the guidance of the Australian Human Rights Commission. National Anti-Racism Framework as a practical step towards doing this.