The Holocaust and Australian Journalism: Reporting and Reckoning

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This book explores the Australian press reporting of the persecution and destruction of European Jewry, and the extent to which the news of the Holocaust was both revealed and hidden, acknowledged and minimised. Spanning the coverage of Hitler’s political ascent in the 1920s through to the Nazis’ extermination campaign, it culminates in the accounts of the trials of Nazi war criminals and the post-war transnational migration to Australia of Holocaust survivors, to a country far from universally welcoming in its reception of them. The book also tells the story of the journalists who reported on these tragic events and the editors who published them, along with the political, social and cultural context in which they worked, in an environment influenced by entrenched, exclusionary ideas about race and nationality that did not necessarily inspire sympathy for Jews and their suffering. This book sheds light on the ethics of reporting human suffering, violence and genocide, and - centrally - on the role of the press in shaping Australia’s collective memory of the Holocaust. It encourages readers to think critically about media power and public apathy, advocacy and the importance of truth. Disturbing evidence of increasing anti-Semitism in Australia, along with continuing Holocaust denial, provide an additional urgency to this study.