Lest we forget the road to genocide
ON THURSDAY night, the Durban Holocaust and Genocide Centre celebrated its 10th birthday, as well as the opening of the Victor Daitz Resource Centre.
Fairy lights glittering in the trees, along with sumptuous fare, almost downplayed the centre’s sombre background.
A key feature is the important role the centre plays in the city. Since its opening on March 9, 2008, around 50 000 schoolchildren have passed through its doors – and it is the youth who will have to mend bridges to make sure South Africa deals with the issues we face, such as xenophobia.
Refugee programmes worldwide highlight the culture of “indifference, apathy and silence”, which lead to the plight many marginalised people face.
Richard Freedman, director of the SA Holocaust and Genocide Foundation, said: “It is our aim to bring young people together to change their perceptions. We want to raise their awareness of other genocides, such as the one in Rwanda in 1994. There is a road to genocide… it’s one of discrimination and marginalisation of people.”
A poignant moment was when a mezuzah was affixed to two of the resource centre’s doorways. These were made from bricks which had once been part of the infamous Warsaw ghetto in Poland.
The resource centre has taken the place of two unused squash courts.
The Daitz Foundation has over the years donated around R7 million to highlighting the plight of refugees, both Jewish and non-jewish. Even so, not much is known about the man, and Sam Abrahams, chairman of the foundation, said Daitz (of Natal Cotton and Woollen Mills in Mobeni) had lived the life of a semi-recluse.
In 1983, he established his foundation by donating the rental proceeds of two properties, one in West Street and one in Smith Street, not just to the Jewish community but to the province in general.
“He attended King Edward High School in Johannesburg,” said Abrahams, mentioning that the youth, the aged and the infirm had all been close to the benefactor’s heart.
“But he was particularly concerned about education in the community at large. When he died in 1999, we found he had bequeathed us properties not just in South Africa but in other parts of the world.
“He gave us the tree, and we had to deal with the fruit of that tree so that it should be here for future generations,”