Kristallnacht

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IN late 1938 an elderly Aboriginal man named William Cooper delivered a letter of protest to the German consulate in Melbourne over the persecution of the Jews on Kristallnacht.

He was one of very few voices of protest -– nationally and internationally – against the rise of Nazism.

A documentary program about William Cooper (1861–1941) and his passionate advocacy for human rights titled One Blood will be broadcast during ABC Radio National’s Awaye! program on December 5 at 6pm.

Freelance producer Jessica Noske-Turner has produced the documentary after being inspired by the spirit and humanity of Cooper, who lived at Cummeragunga, the former Aboriginal mission station on the Murray River in Victoria.
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Alfred “Uncle Boydie” Turner speaks at the UIA's AGM in Melbourne on November 26. Photo: Peter Haskin

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ABORIGINAL elder William Cooper’s grandson, Alfred “Uncle Boydie” Turner, was the guest speaker at the UIA’s AGM in Melbourne on November 26.

Cooper, of Yorta Yorta descent, spent most of his life in the Cummeragunja community where he was a spokesman for the Yorta Yorta in their ongoing battles for land justice against the New South Wales government. Late in life, he resettled in Melbourne.

In 1938, following Kristallnacht, Cooper petitioned the German Consulate over the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews, the only such recorded protest in Australia at that time.

In May 2009, the State of Israel commemorated the brave actions of Cooper.

The Embassy of Israel and United Israel Appeal flew Turner to Israel for this commemoration and he spoke to the AGM about his trip.

Holocaust survivor Fred Stein remembers Kristallnacht.

AJN STAFF

MORE than 400 people turned out to mark the 71th anniversary of the Nazi’s Kristallnacht anti-Semitic pogrom at Emanuel School recently.

Among the guest speakers were Holocaust survivor Fred Stein and Kevin Russell, the great grandson of William Cooper, an Aboriginal man who protested outside the German Consulate against the persecution of German Jews in 1939.

Cooper’s demonstration came just weeks after Kristallnacht, when about 1400 synagogues were set ablaze and hundreds of Jews killed.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president Robin Margo said:  “It takes one’s breath away that people who had suffered, were suffering, so much themselves, who were not yet even counted as people in the Australian census, found it in their hearts to express such solidarity and compassion for another people, our people, subject to persecution in a country thousands of miles from Australia.”
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