Israel honours Aboriginal elder for defying Nazism

The efforts of Aboriginal leader William Cooper are to be recognised

Alfred Turner, grandson of Aboriginal elder William Cooper (inset), in Melbourne yesterday. Picture: Aaron Francis Source: The Australian

AN Aboriginal elder is about to make history by becoming the first indigenous Australian to be honoured with his own memorial and garden at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.

Following a year-long examination of records, historians at Yad Vashem have approved the memorial for the late William Cooper, who led a protest march in Melbourne against the treatment of Jews in Germany only weeks after Kristallnacht in 1938.

The memorial will be the Entrance Gate Garden at the entrance of the huge Yad Vashem complex.

Yad Vashem receives about one million visitors a year -- about 600,000 from overseas and 400,000 from inside Israel -- so the positioning of the memorial means a large number of people will be exposed to the story of Cooper.

The memorial will be in acknowledgment of Cooper leading a protest after the notorious 1938 pogrom in Nazi Germany.

On November 9, 1938, in a state-sponsored reign of terror which came to be known as Kristallnacht -- the night of broken glass -- Jews in Germany were targeted for killings or bashings, and Jewish businesses and homes were smashed.

Cooper, from Footscray in Melbourne's western suburbs, was secretary of the Australian Aborigines League and it appears he had seen reports in Melbourne's papers about Kristallnacht and gathered as many people as he could for a protest.

On December 6, 1938, they walked down Collins Street to the German consulate where they attempted to present a petition to the German consul-general, D.W. Dreschler. Dreschler would not take the petition but the protest caused a stir. The petition protested the "cruel persecution" of Jews in Germany.

The decision to approve the memorial dedication follows a year of representations by Albert Dadon, a leading Melbourne businessman and founder and chair of the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange.

The ceremony to open the memorial will be held on December 15. Yad Vashem has a thorough approach to examining the many submissions it receives each year.

The process began after Dadon visited Yad Vashem last year with Warren Mundine, former national president of the ALP and now head of the Australian Indigenous Chamber of Commerce.

Dadon told The Weekend Australian: "Both Warren and I were following our allocated guide, David Metzler, when we heard him say, 'You Australians should know that a group of Aboriginal people led by William Cooper held in your country the only private protest against the Germans following Kristallnacht'."

Dadon knew about Cooper and his protest, but he found it remarkable to have a guide at Yad Vashem refer to it unprompted.

"Warren and I became quite emotional. I am not sure whether Warren or I suggested that Yad Vashem should house a memorial to William Cooper for his brave act but I do remember telling Warren that AICE would take up the challenge.

"The process to organise a memorial is quite complex. Yad Vashem employs a team of historians for whom a narrative is simply not enough. AICE completed the background research and submitted the file and it took nearly a year for Yad Vashem to verify and be satisfied that the narrative was indeed true and worthy of having a permanent memorial there."

One of the historians involved was David Silberklang.

Dr Silberklang said this week that when he was first told of the Cooper case several months ago he began inquiries with Australian historians and some in Israel who were familiar with the case.

"It's quite a story," he said. "He certainly came across as a significant leader of his community.

"This was not some peripheral person who made a statement but rather somebody who was representing a larger group."

Dr Silberklang said while some foreign governments protested Kristallnacht -- the US withdrew its ambassador -- along with some labour unions, Cooper's protest was unusual because "it was not exactly the power group in the community, like a church or something".

Dadon first learnt of Cooper shortly before launching AICE in December 2002 as the Melbourne Jewish Museum was about to dedicate a plaque to commemorate the protest.

Mundine this week described Cooper as "a giant".

"If only more people in the world had stood up in the 1930s like William Cooper," he said.

"What he did standing up for Jewish people makes him a giant among people."

Dadon said: "I believe that a garden in the memory of William Cooper at Yad Vashem is a just recognition of his courage and will be there to remind people that individuals and minorities can and must speak out when the rest of the world stays silent and they can make a difference when it comes to the plight of other minorities.

"It also symbolises a further bond between these two minority groups who share so much."

A year after his protest Cooper wrote to incoming prime minister Robert Menzies saying he hoped his new government would continue the "Aboriginal uplift" of the government led by Joe Lyons.

"Mr Lyons has assured me that all his ministry shared his sympathy for my race," Cooper wrote. "This includes yourself. I do trust that care for a suffering minority will ensure that kindliness of treatment that will not allow Australia's minority problem to be as undesirable as the European minorities of which we read so much in the press."

Cooper was born on a mission in Echuca, Victoria, in 1861 -- which means he was 77 when he led the protest.

He lived and worked on a reserve in the area doing everything from general labourer to picking up wool. He was said to be a good fisherman, at one stage opening a fish shop in Yarrawonga.

According to the Collaborating for Indigenous Rights website of the National Museum of Australia, he moved to Melbourne in 1933, aged 72, with others of Yorta Yorta descent, where they formed the Australian Aborigines League. If he stayed on the reserve he would have been ineligible for the old-age pension.

The site says, apart from letters to politicians, Cooper dedicated years to a petition to King George V asking for Aboriginal representation in federal parliament.

Despite gathering between 1800 and 2000 signatures, the petition failed.

It says that in 1938, as celebrations were being planned for the sesquicentenary of British arrival, Cooper planned "a day of mourning" -- part of the beginning of political organisation for Aboriginal Australians.