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Introduction
On Australia Day 2021 Federal Treasurer and Liberal Member for Kooyong (a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria), Josh Frydenberg, and Labor Member for Macnamara (also in Melbourne, Victoria), Josh Burns wrote an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald that acknowledged an interesting turn in Australian commemorative practices. As Frydenberg and Burns (2021, para. 14) noted, the establishment of Holocaust museums promoted tolerance and ‘understanding while combating racism and anti-Semitism’. This drive for Holocaust commemoration will eventually see Holocaust memorials and museums established in each capital city. These initiatives are occurring concurrently with the controversial $500 million expansion of the Australian War Memorial, concern over what some see as the paucity of funding allotted to the National Archives, and the ongoing debate about the Frontier Wars and the traditional narrative of European settlement as a benign and civilising process.
Both Frydenberg and Burns lost family members during the Holocaust, a connection that gives them a very personal stake in the delivery of Holocaust education in Australian schools, as well as via its cultural institutions. They see this as a means of ensuring ‘the children of today and tomorrow learn from the past and work towards a brighter, more tolerant and inclusive future’ (Frydenberg & Burns, 2021, para. 16). Both Frydenberg and Burns (2021, para. 1) seek to position the Holocaust as a specific event, one that was ‘not just a crime committed against the Jewish people [but also] a crime against humanity’. They have sought to add to this specificity broad links to contemporary Australian political and cultural values, including ‘a deep commitment to multiculturalism and diversity’ and ‘a pride in the many cultures, religions and identities that make up Australia’ (Frydenberg & Burns, 2021, paras. 25-26).
The determination to ensure the Holocaust does not fade from the collective memory as the last survivors pass away was backed by considerable financial support. In August 2020 the state government of Western Australia allocated $6 million to help fund the construction of a new Jewish Community Centre in Yokine, a suburb of Perth, which would include a Holocaust education centre. In late September 2020 the Morrison Government announced funding of $3.5 million to support the establishment of a Holocaust Museum and Education Centre in Brisbane, Queensland. The then Minister for Education Dan Tehan (2020, para. 3) argued that ‘It is critical that people of all ages, and particularly our young people, learn about this dark period in world history’. Given his role in education, he unsurprisingly harboured hopes for the didactic value of a museum for it ‘would ensure generations of Queenslanders can learn about the past to prevent discrimination and prejudice in the future’ (Tehan, 2020, para. 5).
In October Tehan announced that $2.5 million of government funding would be likewise directe