Henry shares his story
Melbourne Courage to Care Volunteer Holocaust Survivor Speaker Professor Henry Ekert has shared his story with many students over the years, and, accompanied by his wife Barbara, has visited St Joseph’s College on numerous occasions.
Henry signs autographs at St Josephs
The students are always moved and grateful, but on his most recent visit he was presented with something extra sweet
The heartfelt thank you card from the students featured a Twirl chocolate bar.
The significance? Henry has explained to the boys that a chocolate bar was the first thing he was given when he was liberated from the Nazis.
Henry is one of a group of Holocaust Survivor Speakers visiting schools across Victoria sharing their own personal, and incredibly moving experiences of being rescued by people with the moral strength and courage to stand up in the most challenging of circumstances.
These stories highlight the importance of having the courage to care, and combined with practical tools, enable students to stand up against racism and discrimination in all its forms.
The now-retired Professor Ekert went on to become a children’s cancer and haematology specialist and director of the division of medicine at the Royal Children’s Hospital.
During his medical and research career, the survival rate for childhood leukaemia improved from about five per cent to almost 95 per cent, and even in retirement Professor Ekert continues to devote his time to improving the lives of children.
“My story has got an element of optimism, and an element of the misery of World War II,” he said. “The optimism is my success as a doctor and all the things I accomplished in my time at the Royal Children’s Hospital, but the other story I tell them about is my first life and the bystanders and carers.”
The Polish people who saved the lives of the Ekert family did it at risk to their own lives and their own welfare. “They had the courage to care,” Professor Ekert said. “Individuals who care can save somebody. As a result of saving that somebody, that somebody can then contribute to the world to come … as I have in terms of children with cancer.”
A card of thanks
Professor Ekert followed his radiologist father into medicine but was determined to treat patients rather than diagnose them.
“My father was a doctor, a radiologist, and there was never any question in his mind that I would also be a doctor. I didn’t want to be a doctor who diagnosed, I wanted to be a doctor who treated patients on the frontline … I wanted to be the one who could stand up on the frontline because, as a child I was always a victim.
“I could really challenge childhood cancer and blood disorders. I could stand on the frontline and focus on the tragedy of dying children and suffering children and do something about it because during the war I had no such chance at all … I was just a little child whose life mattered to no-one at all except for my parents and I was away from my parents.”
It took Professor Ekert’s father ten years to have his qualifications fully recognised in Australia and to be registered as a medical practitioner, but during those years, he worked as a radiographer for the tuberculosis service.
His father gained his Australian qualifications just six months before Professor Ekert registered as a doctor.
Professor Ekert’s son Paul has also followed into the family business and is also a prominent childhood cancer researcher.
Henry Eckert added: “I stress the courage of the upstanders and the good consequences that may issue from there. My experience at St. Joseph College in Newton has been particularly rewarding because the students are willing to express their thoughts and feelings directly to me. They and their teachers are very special to me.
