Kristallnacht commemoration in Perth
November 6, 2019 by Eli Rabinowitz
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Each year on 9/10 November, we commemorate Kristallnacht, also called Night of Broken Glass or November Pogroms, when German Nazis attacked Jewish persons and property in Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland on that date in 1938…this year the Perth ceremony will be held at Perth Modern School.
Carmel High School visitors to Ellenbrook Secondary College on 5 August for the World Premiere of the four language Partisans song. William Cooper’s great-grandson, Lance Turner, is also in this group of visitors.
The name Kristallnacht refers ironically to the litter of broken glass left in the streets after these pogroms.
The keynote address will be delivered by Malcolm McCusker, the former Governor of WA, who will speak on:
“Evil Creeps Back, If Good People Stand Aside”.
The final item on the program will be the Partisans’ Song, to be sung in four languages, Yiddish, Hebrew, Noongar and English, by the joint choirs of Ellenbrook Secondary College and Carmel High School, under the direction of Stuart Rhine-Davis.
The song was originally written as a poem by Hirsh Glik in 1943. Jesse John Fleay, a lecturer at ECU translated it into Noongar, and Suzanne Kosowitz re-arranged the music by Dmitri Pokrass to fit the Noongar. Michele Galanti coordinates the Carmel School Choir.
The joint Ellenbrook – Carmel choir first performed this inspiring anthem on 5 August at Ellenbrook Secondary College in front of 2000 people, and then repeated it at Carmel School on 7 August. The original recordings are here: https://wah.foundation/program/
The Kristallnacht ceremony this year will be attended by Lance Turner, son of Uncle Boydie Turner and great-grandson of William Cooper, the indigenous Australian, whose protest against the pogroms, at the Nazi consulate office in Melbourne, was finally recognised by the German government in 2017, 79 years later.
Time: 5pm, Sunday Nov 10
Place:
Beasley Auditorium
Perth Modern School
90 Roberts Road
Subiaco
