Explain How James Spigelman Changed Australian Society

803 Words2 Pages

In the world of politics and law, refugees have been a serious issue into today's society. However one refugee helped change Australian society. James Spigelman, was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (NSW). He came to Australia with his family in 1948. He has always believed in fairness and equality due to his Jewish background. As a university student in Sydney he also participated in the Australian freedom rides at the age of 19. James Spigelman's has promoted and changed Australia's image and changed Australia's identity through his power of the law.

Polish-Jews post World War Two experienced hardship and anti-Semitic behaviour bringing more tragic events to Jewish people. James Spigelman's childhood was spent majority in Australia …show more content…

Prior before his immigration his family suffered in the Holocaust in Poland from 1939 to 1945. Spigelman wasn't born until January 1st 1946, four months later, however he did grow up living in terror due to his religion. Months after he was born an outbreak occurred in Kiecle on the 4th of July 1946, 151km far away from his family in Sosnowiec, 42 Jewish men and women, children and infants were brutally murdered. "On 4 July 1946, an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence took place in Kielce and claimed the lives of almost 40 Jews. In fact, there were 42 Jewish victims of the pogrom as several of the injured later died in hospital...The hatred and cruelty displayed on that day are described in eye-witness accounts. We hear about innocent victims being shot, about young girls being thrown from a second story window only to be finished off by the crowd gathered below,

Show More
Related

  • The Butcher’s Tale by Helmut Walser Smith

    1192 Words  | 3 Pages

    Anti-Semitism is the hatred and discrimination of those with a Jewish heritage. It is generally connected to the Holocaust, but the book by Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher’s Tale shows the rise of anti-Semitism from a grassroots effect. Smith uses newspapers, court orders, and written accounts to write the history and growth of anti-Semitism in a small German town. The book focuses on how anti-Semitism was spread by fear mongering, the conflict between classes, and also the role of the government.

    Read More

  • Australia As A Global Citizen Essay

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of Australia’s biggest moral wrongdoings that has been continued to be overlooked is the providing of safety for refugees. Under the article 14, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it states that everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. It is not in anyway, shape or form illegal to seek asylum from maltreatment. Australia is obliged under international law to: offer protection, give support, ensure that any individual is not sent back unwillingly to the country of their origin. A report made by

    Read More

  • How Did Peter Maculthorpe Affect Australia

    565 Words  | 2 Pages

    As the years have gone by, Australia has become increasingly multicultural. Music in Australia has grown to reflect this change and the stereotyped “Australian Sound” – developed primarily from early folk music, patriotic instrumental composition and 1980’s pub rock – has expanded vastly. As a result of this, the “Australian Perspective” too has grown, and now incorporates a vaster range of views and issues as perceived and expressed by different Australian musicians. Peter Sculthorpe was a multi-instrumental composer whose many works often reflected the different social and physical characteristics of Australia.

    Read More

  • The Warsaw Ghetto Resistance

    1555 Words  | 4 Pages

    Gutman, Israel. The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1982. Print.

    Read More

  • The Warsaw Ghetto Annotated Bibliography

    1404 Words  | 3 Pages

    As one of the first witness accounts as to what was occurring in Poland, this address identifies the situation at hand and sheds awareness to other countries. By focusing on each of the issues attached to the occupation of Poland, the news can be spread easily. This is due to the fact that by identifying all of the horrible things being done to the Jews, the rest of the world would immediately feel the need to help. Although awful to hear, the detail used to depict what was occurring was ultimately necessary to attract the attention of other countries to help stop further elimination of Jews.

    Read More

  • The Discrimination and Persecution of Jewish Immigrants

    1504 Words  | 4 Pages

    The history of the Jewish people is one fraught with discrimination and persecution. No atrocity the Nazis did to the Jews in the Holocaust was original. In England in 1189, a bloody massacre of the Jews occurred for seemingly no reason. Later, the Fourth Lateran Council under Pope Innocent III required Jews to wear a badge so that all would know their race, and then had them put into walled, locked ghettos, where the Jewish community primarily remained until the middle of the eighteenth century. When the Black Death ravaged Europe in the medieval ages, many Europeans blamed the Jews (Taft 7). Yet, the one thing that could be more appalling than such brutal persecution could only be others’ failure and flat-out refusal to intervene. Such is the case with the non-Axis coutries of World War II; these nations failed miserably in their responsibility to grant basic human rights – even the right of life – to Jewish immigrants prior to World War II.

    Read More

  • Lina Lodz's Hidden Children During The Holocaust

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    “‘If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example.’” ― Anne Frank (“Children During the Holocaust” 5). In Lodz, Poland, the Nazis had reduced a Jewish population of more than 220,000 to almost less than 1,000 (“Hidden Children: Quest for Family” 2). Families during the Holocaust were treated so badly that being Jewish for some Jewish children had come to symbolize persecution while Christianity symbolized security (“Hidden Children: Quest For Family” 3). And, another frequent problem of the separation of the family was a child's inability in later life to form effective bonds (“Separation from the Family” 12). The Holocaust was something people could only imagine. Families were split apart, loved ones were

    Read More

  • Early Modern Jewish History

    1409 Words  | 3 Pages

    Flohr, Paul R., and Jehuda Reinharz. "2." The Jew in the modern world: a documentary history. 3 ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Print.

    Read More

  • The Story of a Holocaust Survivor

    1397 Words  | 3 Pages

    Joyce began the interview by explaining the pre-war period. Joyce Kleinman was born to a beautiful home in Czechoslovakia on September 12, 1925. Although some discrimination was present, no significantly harmful acts were conducted against the Jewish community. All races could eat wherever they pleased, and all children were schooled together, explained Joyce. The discrimination arose in 1939, when World War II began in Poland. At this time, Joyce was 11 years old and Reisi was 14. Joyce explained how the two girls would often hear sirens outside their windows along with shootings as the war raged on. They would hear planes flying over the roof of their house, and they were not able to open their windows for fresh air because of the terrifying noise. Jews were no longer allowed at school, and all of the Jews were one day required to go down to the police station. Because Joyce and Reisi’s father was a well-respected man within the community, the police let them leave.

    Read More

  • How Did The Nuremberg Laws Help Jews Respond To The Holocaust?

    834 Words  | 2 Pages

    There were many cruel acts committed against the Jews in the 1930-40’s throughout Europe. The Nazis and Germans were horrible to the Jews. They tortured, killed and injured millions of Jews throughout Europe. We, as Jews, try to remember these horrible acts done to fellow Jews and promise that they will never happen again.

    Read More

  • Essay On Hitler Hate The Jews

    628 Words  | 2 Pages

    So there was some hard times from world war on to world war 2 for the jews. There families were killed in war killed by hitler and the Nazis and they were torture and beaten with sticks by hitler. They were put in camps and they barley had any food to eat and no drinks to drink.

    Read More

  • Holocaust: Other Victims Of The Holocaust

    1053 Words  | 3 Pages

    During World War II, six million Polish citizens in total were killed. Among these, three million were not Jewish. Between 1939 and 1945, at least 1.5 million Polish non-Jews were deported into forced labor (Jacobs). Of these, all 1.5 million were killed (Jacobs). All of these victims were not Jewish. Yet despite this, they suffered just as much. The Jews were not the only ones who suffered. Their Polish brethren did as

    Read More

  • Facts About The Holocaust

    1092 Words  | 3 Pages

    The population of the Jewish community had dropped immensely within the years of 1939 and 1945, during World War II (Holocaust Facts). There have

    Read More

  • Essay On Australian Identity

    721 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hopefully, there can be no doubt that Australia is a richly culturally diverse nation, and that a major contribution to this has been the encouragement by successive governments over the past half-century to newcomers to Australia to participate fully in the life of their new nation, respecting the values and the institutions of their new nation

    Read More

  • Biography of Anne Frank

    1148 Words  | 3 Pages

    “After May 1940, the good times were few and far between; first there was war, then the capitulation and then the arrival of the German. Which is when the trouble started for the Jews....

    Read More

More about Explain How James Spigelman Changed Australian Society

Open Document