The “Hellenic” connection that existed at the highest level of the Community Relations Commission of NSW, continues, with the recent appointment of the new Chair.
The previously chairman, Stepan Kerkyasharian, of Armenian descent , was born in Cyprus . His successor, Vic Alhadeff, is the son of the Jewish community of Greece who were born on the island of Rhodes in the Dodecanese.
Mr Alhadeff reported extensively on his “Rhodian” roots, during his address at the official opening of The 32nd Greek Festival of Sydney.
Speaking in front of a crowd in their thousands he stressed “the deep personal connection I will always feel to the Greek community and to the Greek people”.
He narrated publically his family’s story with the following words:
“My parents were born in Rhodes. Their world came crashing down at the start of WWII when a raft of anti-Jewish decrees were passed which said that Jews were no longer no longer to attend school, own businesses or marry other people.
“My father knew it was time to leave. So he set sail for Zimbabwe, Southern Africa. Hoping to bring his parents, his sister and his fiancee Becky.
“It wasn’t to be. German forces arrived on Rhodes and the 2000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz , the largest of the Nazi death camps. My father’s parents, my grandparents, were murdered there. His sisters survived.
“But what of his fiancee, Becky?
“She too deported to Auschwitz . That was the last my father heard of her. He wrote letter after letter to her. All were returned unopened. He was told she had been killed; she was told that he had been killed.
“Some years ago my father was on holiday in Cape Town- and overheard his fiancee’s name. Becky. The same person to whom he had been engaged 50 years earlier.
“She had survived- and was now a grandmother in her 70’s living in Belgium. And my father was now a grandfather in his 80’s”, he concluded his narration.
Apart from this personal story, Mr Vic Alhadeff mentioned incidents in Greece during the Nazi occupation where municipal authorities and the Greek-Orthodox Church, despite the pressures, did not give in and saved thousands of Jews.
“There were principled people who had the courage to speak against evil when so few did”, Mr Alhadeff said.
Articulating the objectives of the CRC, Mr Alhadeff said the “Commission is about intercultural relations. It is about respect for the fact that we are Greek Australians, Vietnamese Australians, African Australians, Australians of 170 cultures. It is about the fact that Australia is a multicultural nation, and that our diversity is our strength, and the peace within that diversity is our greatest strength”, Mr Alhadef said.
The new Chair of CRC of NSW is a member of the Jewish Board of Deputies and is a former editor of “The Australian Jewish News”
