23 June 2026
I – Linz
During a European heatwave, early morning is a good time to be out on the streets, before the sun is too high in the sky. This morning, that was my plan; to explore the backstreets of Linz and the Castle, before it was just too hot to be out of the shade.
A few streets from the castle, was a shady street with a café. Across from the café was a man in a Palestine flag coloured t-shirt and the slogan “From the River to the Sea”. He had, next to him, a small cart with pamphlets and a sign “Free Palestine”. The man was speaking with a woman. The woman’s voice, as I approached, was getting louder.
Both spoke perfect English, albeit with an accent. I thought it odd that they were, in an Austrian street, conversing in English rather than German, but perhaps it was a common language. Afterall, their respective accents were quite different.
The man was short and unassuming and, but for his t-shirt and cart, would not likely have attracted attention. But for the woman, increasingly heated, his presence was not to be ignored.
When I was within a few metres I stopped to listen. I did not want to engage with their conversation. It was between them, no matter how voluminous. I was also in a foreign country and, in light of the public statements by our Prime Minister and others, that they have nothing but for contempt for their fellow citizens who express views they do not agree with and that they would not lift a finger to help them, I had no desire to test the efficiency of the Austrian police with the possibility that I would receive little or no consular assistance.
The more I listened to the woman’s heated barrage towards this largely silent man, the more intrigued I was by her hyperbole. “You do not want me to exist; you want me killed” she yelled at the man. “Were you on the streets demanding the release of the hostages?” she asked. “You think what these terrorists do is acceptable” she confidentially proclaimed, “you want Israel destroyed”!
Once she had walked away, I approached the man and asked him if he was ok. “I’m fine” he replied, “I am used to this”. His calm composure suggested that this might be so. I expressed my solidarity with his message and commented that wearing his t-shirt in parts of Australia is illegal and, in any event, would be criticised as antisemitic. “Here too” he replied.
We shook hands and said goodbye, and I caught up with my family. But the man and the scene I had witnessed stayed with me.
II – Dachau
The day before, I had been in Munich and, from there, had visited Dachau Concentration Camp. It had been a similarly hot day.
Dachau is not just the name of the former Nazi concentration camp; it is a suburb of Munich. It 20 minutes or so out of the city centre on a local train. The camp is then a short bus trip from the train station.
The Dachau concentration camp is extraordinary in a number of ways. The camp’s proximity to the suburb from which it gets its name is remarkable. Suburban houses lead all the way to the entrance of the camp. In this way, the camp itself seems almost suburban. This proximity begs the question “How could people not have known what was going on”, especially as the inmates of Dachau arrived by truck, driven through these suburban streets, or march through the suburb to the camp. If nothing else, surely the local residents would have been able to hear and smell the activities of the camp.
The camp is not that large, considering the number of people who passed through it and the number who died at it. It takes about 10 minutes to walk the perimeter of the main camp area (although, as time progressed, about 140 “sub camps”, some adjoining the site, some removed but administered from the camp, were added).
At one stage, towards the end of the war, the camp held over 30,000 people It is estimated that over 41,500 people died at Dachau through a combination of starvation, disease, execution and from “medical experiments”.
Dachau commenced as a concentration camp in 1933 and operated until liberated in 1945. It was one of the first Nazi concentration camps and became the model for those that followed. Dachau was a concentration camp rather than an extermination camp, such as Auschwitz. Many died at the camp, but the more efficient factory extermination camps came after Dachau and with the singular purpose of death (hence, the need for permanent accommodation blocks was less).
Dachau and similar concentration camps received a variety of people-“habitual criminals” (although that term was fairly fluid in a country where “crimes” were broadly defined), political prisoners, especially from the left and opposition parties, pacifists (including a number of priests), Jehovah’s Witnesses, Sinti and Roma peoples and others considered “socially unhygienic”, such as the disabled (after all, Austrian doctor Hans Asberger, for whom “Aspergers” is named, collaborated with the regime with the result that his diagnoses were a death sentence), the “sexually deviant”, largely homosexual men, the “asocial” and work shy, migrants, Prisoners of War and, of course, Jews.
During the Nazi reign, approximately 15 million people were killed, including approximately 6 million Jews and 3 million Soviet prisoners of war. Whilst Jews were, by far, the largest single group to be persecuted and exterminated, there were many other groups targeted (not that such statistics could ever ameliorate the horror or trauma for any group or individual).
Each designation of prisoner was assigned a coloured triangle for their uniform (at least initially) – pink for homosexuals, black for “asocials”, green for criminals and forced labourers, red for communists, blue for emigrants, purple for Jehovah’s Witnesses, yellow for Jews. Even in the hell of a concentration camp, there was hierarchy. Not even if death and misery was there equality, other than in death. This hierarchy continues on, with dispute within the survivor’s association and with respect to the memorial to survivors, made up of glass triangles, but not including the colours of all that were detained.
Concentration Camps like Dachau and the Labour Camps and Extermination Camps were but manifestations of the hatred that filled the hearts and laws of Nazi Germany. They were a manifestation of the beliefs and ideologies of a sick, deranged society. None of it could have happened without the simple and basic dehumanising of those who became its victims (or indeed the perpetrators). That people were seen as “less”, as “other” with less value, without value, as an “infection” of society, enabled and facilitated the regime and its actions.
We see the beginnings of such thinking in the way immigrants are spoken of, Muslims are spoken of, Jews are spoken of, First Nations peoples are spoken of. Anyone we want to “other” and blame. But it is more than a failure to accept humanity. It is a judgmentalism devoid of empathy and love. It is reflected in the comments that fill social media regarding the homeless, the incarcerated, the poor-that they somehow deserve their lot in life, that they are solely responsible for their problems. It is reflected in the casual racism, classism, sexism, disablism of everyday life. That casual application of perceived superiority and entitlement is not comparable to the atrocities of the Nazis, but it is the seed that germinates and grows into such hate.
That establishment figures like Katie Hopkins can call immigrants and asylum seekers (largely fleeing wars, catastrophes and conditions created or contributed to by her country) “cockroaches” and not be condemned, is the same thinking, albeit on a smaller scale. Hanson can say there are no “good Muslims” and there is muted rebuttal, but no outrage. Indeed, demonstrated asylum seekers who arrive by boat can be systematically detained in offshore detention in hellish conditions and there is no outrage, indeed, broad public support (and as one of my former judicial colleagues once commented, he was “protecting Australia’s porous borders” each day when he sat, or stood, in court dismissing asylum claims).
And we seem oblivious to these things.
On visiting Dachau, I was part of a tour. The small group I travelled with were largely Americans and largely from Minneapolis. Their input to the day was a part of the broad experience of Dachau.
Our group met at the end of Munich Old town, at the fountain near the Karlsplatz Ubahn station (what was telling about the directions for where to meet was the description “wait between McDonalds and Starbucks”-a Munich Old Town square thoroughly Americanised and cheapened). We introduced ourselves and after the obligatory explanation that Hobart was nowhere near Brisbane or Sydney, they indicated where they were from, Minneapolis.
I asked my newfound friends “things look pretty grim there with ICE raids and protests” and the response surprised me “oh that’s all fake news, it’s calm, it’s an ANTIFA beat-up. They’re [ICE] just doing their job’. I wanted to ask them whether they though that the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti were just ICE “doing their job”, but left it alone and was glad that, at that moment, our guide arrived to collect us.
At Dachau, our guide began his introduction by referring to the earliest folk sent to Dachau-political opponents, Roma and Emigrants. My American friend offered “I can’t believe they would lock people up, just for being immigrants”. This from a man whose city has seen a flood of migrant arrests and incarcerations and deportations and deaths, on the streets and in ICE detention centres. But why wouldn’t it be that way? That ability to live a lie, a duality, to turn a blind eye, to criticise what others do when it is exactly what you are doing, is what allows these injustices to occur, to continue, to escalate.
III – Dispossession
The interpretative signs and information boards at Dachau are extensive. This includes detailed descriptions in the former arrival and processing hall of the Camp of the dispossession of inmates and especially of Jews.
A striking part of this was a large photo with a throng of people outside a home and an auction being conducted. The interpretation of the photo read:
Sale of Jewish property: Bidders and spectators, presumably at a sale of household goods and linens that deported Jews had been forced to leave behind, Hanau, undated (1942).
Only a week earlier, in London, the “Great Israel Real Estate Event” had been held. The Event, run by a real estate agency My Home in Israel, was not new. It had been held in the USA and Canada before. The event seeks to attract people to buy land in both Israel and in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and in illegal settlements therein.
On the day I was leaving Germany, Al Jazeera carried footage of Israeli soldiers dancing inside a heavily graffitied home in South Lebanon. The family who owns the home and had lived in it, had been forcibly displaced. Each day I was reading reports of the expulsion, the beating and the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank (they only made the news when US congressman Ro Khannan experienced this and then there was reporting and outrage, at least for a news cycle).
It is difficult to not connect these events. There is a similarity between the forced displacement of German (and other European) Jews from their homes and the displacement of Palestinian and Lebanese families from their homes and those homes being assumed and occupied by Israelis (be they soldiers or “settlers”).
Certainly, it must be acknowledged that the forced displacements undertaken by the Nazis culminated in the occupants of homes being forced into ghettos and transported to Concentration and Extermination Camps. Palestinian and Lebanese families forcibly displaced from their properties are not so treated (although 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, many under “Administrative Detention”. The conditions of that detention are extremely poor and for an increasing number, fatal).
In reading these materials, the similarities in treatment of targeted populations seem irresistible. That the Israeli government, courts and military would forcibly evict and displace so many Palestinians and Lebanese and that they have done so since 1947 seems to be overlooked by Western governments. Sanctions are imposed on a number of “settlers” and government ministers, but beyond such hand wringing there is no action. Indeed, sales fairs such as the Greater Israel event are held in the USA, Canada and England. Trade continues unabated, arms are purchased and military alliances built. Those who raise their voices or act in opposition, such as Palestine Action, Grace Tame, James Chambers and Mahmoud Khalil, are proscribed, prosecuted and persecuted.
Every day in Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and Syria, people are dispossessed and their property, real estate or personal, is taken, sold or destroyed (who can forget the images of “brave” Israeli soldiers parading with the intimate garments of women they have displaced or killed). As Mary Robinson and Helen Clark opine as I write, the prospect of Palestine disappearing before our eyes as our governments are silent and thereby complicit, is real.
If G’vir, Katz, Smotrich and Netanyahu could find Hebrew words for “Lebensraum”, they could use them to replace their preferred term “Greater Israel” – the intent is the same – to expel the Arab population and seize their property. And there are sufficient comments by those in positions of authority in Israel to make clear that the fate of the present populations of those areas is of little or no concern, such as May Golan, who was recorded stating “I don’t care about Gaza, I literally don’t care. For all I care, they can go out and just swim in the sea” Israeli settler leader Daniella Weiss who was clear that she is unconcerned by the number of Gazan deaths or, more recently, Katz who gets a “good feeling” about the destruction of Gaza, of which Golan is proud.
The arrogance and denial of those on trial at Nuremberg and Frankfurt following WWII, the same is apparent in these Israeli officials. The same hatred of the other. But that is not unique. It is the same hatred, perhaps in different measure, as those who call for the closure of borders, the incarceration and deportation of immigrants and the return to policies of “white Australia” and monoculture.
IV – Linz Mariendom
Linz hosts the largest cathedral in Austria, the Linz Mariendom or New Cathedral. It is an enormous and impressive Catholic Cathedral (an opulence a little lost on Lutherans and Quakers but undeniably massive and grand).
As soon as you enter the Cathedral you find a plaque dedicated to the numerous Linz and Austrian Catholic priests who were persecuted by the Nazis. A number were arrested and sent across the border to Dachau. Over 2,700 clerics, predominantly Catholics, were sent to Dachau. So many, in fact, that Dachau had a specific “Priests Barracks”.
Perhaps the most notable cleric detained at Dachau was Martin Niemöller (a Lutheran rather than a Catholic). He is famous for his poem “First they came”:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me 1
The poem is often quoted and adapted. Perhaps the most incisive adaptation I have heard is a recent adaptation by Welsh performer Partick Jones, his piece “After Niemöller”. This version focuses on Israel’s assault on Palestine (ongoing, notwithstanding the loudly lauded “ceasefire” and the press silence as to the daily death toll from Israel’s actions). You really should go to Bandcamp and search it out and listen. If you do, you will find this in the description of the piece:
By ignoring all the signs of a genocide committed in plain sight we are complicit in the deaths of 42000 Palestinians – 17000 of these being children 2
The track was released in October 2024, reflecting the then death toll. The death toll is now approaching 80,000 (plus the near daily deaths in West Bank and the death toll in Lebanon, Iran, etc).
Whilst the death toll has changed, the fundamental proposition that silence makes us complicit has not. That was an important message conveyed at Dachau, together with the well-known phrase “Never Again”. But there seems to be some ambivalence as to whether “never again” is an absolute statement, universal to all, or not. You would be forgiven, perhaps, for thinking that, for the government of Israel, “never again” does not apply to those upon whom they choose to inflict death, destruction and misery.
And the dialogue is hijacked. To oppose or criticise the actions of the Israeli government is antisemitic (even if you are Jewish). To oppose or criticise the actions of the Israeli government is to support “terrorists”. To have empathy for the Palestinian, Lebanese, Iranian or Yemeni people is to have no empathy for anyone else. To have empathy for another human being because they are human is not permitted in the binary battle of good and evil that is the narrative created in this space.
That was the problem in 1933, and it is the problem now. Niemöller and other clerics found themselves in Dachau for expressing empathy and love for others, especially for others seen as unworthy of empathy, whose humanity was stripped from them. Those sentiments and emotions are what are ultimately considered so dangerous and subversive.
And that is the problem. What was done 7 October 2023 was abhorrent. But that does not mean that all done before and after, irrespective of by whom, is not also abhorrent.
I had wanted to say, to the enraged woman arguing in that Linz street, that she had every right to live. That I supported that without question. But so does every Palestinian. Every Lebanese. Every Iranian. Every Syrian. If only everyone’s right to live, to be free and treated with dignity and equality, to be treated as human and as equal, could be respected, that perhaps, just perhaps, we could stop having these arguments and these wars.
It is too easy to blame individuals, especially “leaders”, and to see them as the “monsters” who are responsible. Those who believe and support such views, who vote for their leaders or who, through silence, enable them, are also to blame. Every act and word as well as every inaction or silence, is political. Haile Selassie eloquently opined “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph”.
The synopsis of Patrick Jones’s piece ends with a particularly apt quote from Primo Levi:
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions”3
And so, after that conversation on a Linz street, monsters on both sides continue to exist. But in the popular narrative only one set of monsters are identified and, those in power, increasingly seek to silence any dissent and so as not to allow the orthodoxy to be challenged.
I am so very grateful for every person standing in a quiet street who, with their tremulous voice raised or simply standing in dignified silence, expresses solidarity for humanity.
