By John McCormick….
Over 80 people attended an event to commemorate UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day was held in the Hawkes Bay Museum on the Napier waterfront.
People came from as far south as Waipukurau to attend. They included the Mayor of Hastings Sandra Hazelhurst and the MP for Napier the Hon Stuart Nash, Minister of Tourism.
The event started at 5.30pm with a Maori welcome by Te Hira Henderson, MTG Maori Curator. Then MC Andy Wilson, a history teacher at Napier Girls High School, outlined the evening’s programme before leading those attending through it.
The evening began with the lighting of six candles by a diverse group of people. They were Tiffany Anderson – the violinist, Barbara Arnott – former mayor of Napier, Rizwaana Latiff – from the Office of Ethnic Communities, Sukhdeep Singh – president Multicultural Association Hawkes Bay, Syed Iqbal – Pakistan and Friends Association Napier, and Amit Ophir – six years old, fourth generation of Holocaust survivors.
The Mayor of Napier Kirsten Wise addressed the meeting. This included a welcome to those visitors from outside Hawkes Bay and included historical comments.
A video collection of photos and notes from survivor families, entitled “We are still here”, which was put together by the Holocaust Centre of NZ, was played. Many of the surnames featured are well known around the country, In particular the business world.
Holocaust Centre of NZ education director Kristopher Clancy addressed the meeting and talked about aspects of New Zealand’s history. That included our very poor, if not embarrassing, response to Nazi persecution by only allowing 1200 Jews to enter New Zealand between 1933 and 1945.
Subsequent items on the programme included a performance by violinist Tiffany Anderson who played Vidui No. 1 from Baal Shem “Three pictures of Chassidic Life” by Bloch and Noni Ophir reading Rachel Shapira’s poem ‘Be Still’ in Hebrew, followed by Sharney Taylor reading it in English.
Rabbi Jo Ellen Duckor from Wellington ended the evening with El Male Rachamim and Kaddish.
The Napier event was one of five held in New Zealand in Auckland, Hamilton, Napier Wellington and Christchurch on January 27. Why was an event held in Napier? The MTG Hawkes Bay Museum Napier has hosted the NZ buttons collection of 1.5 million buttons [one for each child who died in the Holocaust] since mid October 2020. This event came at the end of the collections time in Napier.
Supper followed the event.
