To The Editor:
It is with a sense of deep disappointment that I feel
obligated to
put pen to paper in protest at recent developments here in
Australia.
As an Australian Jew and rabbi to a Congregation comprising
almost
one thousand Holocaust survivors and their families, I am
extremely
disturbed by the Government's handling of the Konrad Kalejs
affair.
Alleged complicity in the annihilation of over thirty
thousand human
beings is a crime that beggars the imagination and is clearly
beyond
our capacity to comprehend.
By all means, every individual has the right to a presumption
of innocence
until proven guilty, but surely allegations of this
astonishing scale
deserve, nay demand, investigation down to the very last
shred of
evidence.
How ironic it is that a nation which has spared no expense to
try
and repatriate and bring to justice a fugitive businessman
from Spain,
finds it too difficult to fully investigate allegations of
mass murder
on an unfathomable scale against one of it's citizens. At the
very
minimum it surely wouldn't be too difficult to extradite him
to Latvia
who are more than willing to put him on trial.
To my mind, it is clearly incongruous with the image of
fairness,
justice and morality which Australia enjoys internationally,
that
an alleged mass murderer find safe haven here after being
refused
such protection in so many other parts of the world.
Furthermore,
to those who say that the individual concerned is in his late
eighties
and should be left alone, I say that it is a disgrace to and
damning
indictment upon the civilized world as well as a blot on
humanity's
collective conscience that such alleged crimes could have
gone unpunished
for the last fifty years.
Coincidentally, on the very same day that the news of Kalejs'
return
was reported on the radio, a different news item read in the
same
bulletin caught my attention. Three fish in the new Melbourne
Aquarium,
out of its three thousand new marine residents, had died, and
due
to the outcry of the RSPCA, investigations were underway to
determine
the cause, presumed to be polluted sand! How shameful it felt
as a
human being and as an Australian, to realize, that
responsibility
for the massacre of thirty thousand innocent men, women and
children,
was somehow less deserving of investigation, some fifty years
after
their blood and cries were swallowed up by the earth, than
three fish
in an aquarium!
I personally have a community of Holocaust survivors to
minister to.
I know well of the outrage of my own family, who are
Holocaust survivors,
as well as that of the whole community over this matter.
I fully agree a man is innocent until proven guilty. But in
the name
of humanity, justice and G-d, as well as the memory of all
those martyred
victims, I implore you to leave no stone unturned, no fence
standing
in the pursuit of justice for the indescribable atrocities of
the
Holocaust.
Human life is worth more than fish.
Yours sincerely,
Rabbi Yonason Abraham
Rav, Caulfield Shule
Member of the Melbourne Beis Din
NOTE: This letter was written by a chareidi rav to the
leaders
of Australia regarding the issue of the Nazi war criminal Mr.
Kalejs.
This letter was also printed in the local Australian Jewish
newspapers.
The writer has received the support of the opposition party
so far,
and is awaiting the reactions of other leaders.
