The Jewish Museum

A canny eighty five year old gentleman showed a couple of ladies and I around the Sydney Jewish Museum. As we passed a photograph of men building a wall to divide a Polish city into Jewish and non-Jewish parts, he mentioned that he had seen it under construction. Another photo showed precise lines of Nazi soldiers marching into Poland: he had seen that too. I asked about his family and he said they'd been gassed. At the children's memorial our guide seemed to have as much difficulty as I grasping that people had killed these little children. (Later I remembered that even in peace the killings go on.) He had escaped from a concentration camp, one of only a handful to do so. I stupidly asked him if in his subsequent employment, he had to pretend to be a Christian . . . I wanted to say sorry to him on behalf of all the Christians who did nothing to stop the genocide of his people.

I went around again later and looked at newspaper accounts of the situation in Germany and the Second World War. Before the outbreak of war there was some quite detailed reporting of violence against Jewish people. After the war began, the newspaper accounts were all about Hitler's demands and the progress of the war. I didn't notice anything about concentration camps or what was happening to the Jews. The style of writing, the layout and the mixture of grave world events and both serious and sensational local news was pretty similar to today's broadsheets. I could imagine myself back then reading the Australian papers, concerned for the Jews, then turning the page and forgetting them. As the war began, I doubt I would even remember they had been mixed up in its beginning. I'd just want the allies to win.

In the section on the Jewish faith there were exhibits about the Hebrew Bible. I was so grateful that on the foundation of these people's faith, salvation came to a Gentile like myself. I felt like saying yes, I agree with all this – this is the true and glorious record of the one God. But then I read of their Zionist hopes and looking for a Messiah. A computer was set up with answers to frequently asked questions on its screen. I clicked on, “Why don't Jews believe that Jesus is the Messiah?”. The answer given was that the Messiah will establish the nation of Israel and bring peace and prosperity to earth. It grieved me to see the mistake and sin of their fathers being repeated 5000 years on. I felt like crying out, “The Messiah has come! There is good news! What you hope for has happened and more gloriously than you ever imagined!”. But they were closing early for Sabbath and I didn't even get to write in the Visitor's Book.