The Turnbulls visit Yad Vashem

Australia Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife Lucy have visited Yad Vashem World Holocaust Centre in Jerusalem and reiterates “as we stand with Israel and the Jewish People”.

The Prime Minister toured the Holocaust History Museum, participated in a memorial ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance and visited the Children’s Memorial.

At the conclusion of his visit, Prime Minister Turnbull described visiting Yad Vashem as “one of the most moving experiences that anyone can have. The sheer banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt said, shocks us to the very core. The mind recoils from it… The ‘Final Solution’ was planned by bureaucrats, and it reminds us that the smartest, the most technological, the most educated can do the most terrible things.”

In the Yad Vashem Guest Book, he wrote: “All of the world’s oceans cannot contain our tears, but all of the world’s steel cannot match the strength of our determination as we stand with Israel and the Jewish people and resolve – ‘Never Again’.”

In a statement Prime Minister Turnbull said: “Thank you for this and thank you again for being our hosts here today. This is the second time Lucy and I have been at Yad Vashem.

It is one of the most moving experiences that anyone can have.

The sheer banality of evil, as Hannah Arendt said, shocks us to the very core. The mind recoils from it.

Lucy and I have visited the Wannsee House where the Final Solution was planned by bureaucrats and it reminds us that the smartest, the most technological, the most educated can do the most terrible things.

That is why we must never forget and why we must resolve with strength, the strength of all the world’s steel never again.

Thank you very much for hosting us here today.”

The Turnbulls laid a wreath in the memorial hall as Sydney’s Central Synagogue cantor Shimon Farkas recited Kel Maleh Rachamim the prayer for the departed.