Wednesday, 21 September 2022

Legal and Social Issues Committee

Inquiry into Anti-Vilification Protections

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (10:18:578:): I rise to speak to the Legal and Social Issues Committee inquiry into anti-vilification protections in Victoria and to say farewell to one of Victoria’s finest. Many of you met Holocaust survivor Halina Strnad in June of this year, when she watched from the public gallery of this house as we debated legislation to ban Nazi hate symbols in Victoria, the Summary Offences Amendment (Nazi Symbol Prohibition) Bill 2022. That bill responded to this committee report. It was a bill that made Halina proud of all of us in this Parliament. Sadly, Halina left us earlier this month after a life that can only be described as extraordinary.

Halina Strnad was born Halina Wagowska on an unknown date in 1930, a date not just unknown by me, it was unknown by her, because when she was very young Halina was imprisoned by the Nazis for nearly six years. She lost both parents in this time and endured unspeakable horrors, which I will not be canvassing again today, because today is about celebrating her life, marked though it was by death. And it was a truly remarkable life, because Halina survived the ghettos and the Nazi death camps and made it her life’s work to give evidence over and over and over again at the trials of war criminals.

Her courage and conviction were legendary, and her steely determination to testify saw her continuing to give sworn evidence at trials into her 90s. She has told her story many times, including in her stunning book entitled The Testimony as well as through many, many interviews with Holocaust researchers. In 2020 Halina testified in the trial against Bruno Dey, a 93-year-old former Nazi SS guard at the concentration camp Stutthof in 1944 and 1945. Thanks to the testimony of Halina and many others, Dey was found guilty of complicity in the murder of more than 5000 prisoners. Poignantly, she often described the sentiment of herself and her fellow prisoners during the Holocaust in these terms: ‘If we survive, we must testify until we die’. And that she did, quite literally, until she died. The last time I spoke to Halina she told me that she was preparing to appear as a witness in the trial of another SS guard. For Halina, assisting with the continued prosecution of the former Nazis who worked in the death camps she survived was her obligation. She undertook every opportunity available to her to ensure that the horrors of the Holocaust were known and the guilty were convicted.

Halina was not just an incredible witness in the trials of Nazi war criminals. She was an active, committed and passionate activist on a range of issues both inside the ALP and in the broader community. In particular she was a tireless advocate for women and girls, with a focus on access to safe abortions. She was a crusader against fascism and racism in all its forms. Finally, as a committed secular humanist, she campaigned for voluntary assisted dying, a cause that ultimately moved from the political to the personal.

For over 20 years she held the Burwood branch meetings in her living room. She was such a generous hostess and put on suppers for every meeting, which quickly became legendary. She told me a story recently about post Tiananmen Square in the 1980s when Box Hill was not quite the culinary hub it is now. A bunch of students who had fled from China were invited to the meeting and she, in an effort of cultural recognition, prepared 50 dim sims. None of them were eaten, and with her classic thrift she eked them out and ate them herself over the course of a couple of months, having stuck them all in the freezer. So she had them in soup, she had them in pasta and she had them in sandwiches over the course of the months that followed. These suppers were joyous because the Labor family became her family, and this loss is felt like a family loss. Branch secretary Michael Watson described her as the glue that held Labor together in Burwood and the eastern suburbs, especially in times when we had no Labor representatives in either the Victorian or the federal parliaments.

Halina was a great student of history, a passion shared with Barry Jones, who she was so proud of having brought along to a branch meeting. Her quirky political archives meant that at a moment’s notice she could walk out of a branch meeting and return a second later with a political cartoon or an article about Chifley or JFK or Whitlam that perfectly captured the sentiment of the issue being discussed and allowed her to opine that ‘we have been talking about this issue for decades’.

I know she will be missed by many who spent time in or with the Burwood branch, including Janet Chiron, Michael Watson, Anna Burke, Christine Chapel and Halina’s long-time best friend and comrade, the wonderful Maree Hodgens—and she will be missed by me. It was a special, once-in-a-lifetime friendship and one of the highlights of my time as the member for Burwood. I will always remember and cherish her incredible passion and humanity. On behalf of the entire Burwood community, I extend my sincere condolences to— (Time expired)

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Forest Hill.

Mr Fowles: By leave, could I just have—

Leave refused.