A Bright Light in Dark Days

 In 1940, out on the edge of the NSW Outback, Labour Party Whip Mark Davidson, the member for Bourke and Cobar, was almost a lone voice speaking up for the Aboriginal people in Parliament.
 
 “The aboriginal population of New South Wales has been dying out since the advent of the white man. They are in the minority, and it seems they are being treated as Hitler treats minorities on the other side of the world, although perhaps not so forcibly. They are being treated in a manner that will bring about their extinction.”
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Given the times, the Catholic member’s speech was strikingly brave and may have been prompted by an event 2 years previously in Melbourne.
 
On the night of November 8th 1938, Nazi paramilitary forces, members of Hitler Youth along with ordinary citizens, had spilled into city streets for a night of violence that launched the slaughter of 6 million European Jews.
 
The eerie sounds of shattering glass from 7000 Jewish owned businesses, the roar of flames consuming 200 synagogues, the cries of anguish from 30,000 throats as men women and children were herded into trucks destined for concentration camps, carried 16000 kms half-way round the world.

This ‘Kristallnacht’ became a word of infamy across the globe. But who cared? One Australian living in Melbourne knew more than just glass had been broken.

  On the morning of Tuesday, December 6th 1938, Yorta Yorta civil rights activist, 77-year-old William Cooper, a distinguished white-haired gentleman with an impressive walrus moustache, left his little cottage at 73 Southampton St in Footscray to walk 12 kms to the German Embassy with members of the Australian Aboriginals League, bearing a protest letter. The men wore suits and hats, the women were in their Sunday best.
 
The humble delegation’s plan was simple - to front Nazi Government representatives and tell them to stop the brutal persecution of Jews. William put his case bluntly. “Our people have suffered much cruelty, exploitation and misunderstanding as a minority at the hands of another people. The Nazi government has a consulate here on our land. Let us go there and make our protest known.” According to the National Museum of Australia, it is considered by many to be the only private protest of its kind in the world at the time.
 
It's no surprise that William Cooper’s delegation was turned away. His grandson Boyd summed up what provoked his grandfather to act. "I don't believe he actually met a Jew in his life, but he knew what racism was and he knew how to act ethically. I think it was the humanity of the man; he knew what was right and what was wrong. When he read what was happening in Germany, he said if someone didn't stand up to Hitler, there would be genocide."

It’s not often recognised that William Cooper’s ethics and humanity had been deeply influenced by a small band of Christians who created a remarkable incubator for human rights on the banks of the Murray River.
 
In 1864, English businessman Daniel Matthews, on witnessing Aboriginals living on the fringes of his town in a pitiful drunken state, decided to act. “That night he wrote in his journal words that would begin an amazing journey for him and his family, ‘My God! Can this be right?’. From that day, the Matthews committed themselves to the service of the Murray River Aboriginal people.”      https://publicchristianity.org/article/indigenous-rights-before-their-time/ 

This family worked themselves broke providing a safe haven for indigenous refugees on Yorta Yorta land near Echuca. Even though Daniel was an authoritarian, they knew he loved them and named him ‘Maranooka’ or ‘Friend’. He won William to the Christian faith by his actions.
 
Over decades, William watched Daniel and his wife Janet face bitter opposition, never faltering in making the plight of the Aboriginal people known to government and the press. Daniel’s letters and correspondence have been described by respected researcher John Harris as ‘possibly the most eloquent, compassionate and persistent pleas on behalf of the Aboriginal people in Australia’s history.’ (One Blood, p222)

In 1881, Daniel recruited Mauritian Indian teacher Thomas Shadrach James to his tiny school at Maloga on the Murray. Over the space of the next forty years, this intelligent, educated Christian tutor gently trained a generation of civil rights activists to ‘lead and write.’ William Cooper was among them.
 
In 2002 William’s pilgrimage to the German Consulate to protest Kristallnacht  came to light after fifty years when leaders of the Aboriginal, Jewish and Christian communities met and agreed that this lost moment in Australian history needed to be revived. A number of things have followed.
 
 On December 15th 2010, the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, announced the establishment of a new academic Chair, the Chair for the Study of Resistance during the Holocaust. The Chair was endowed to honour William Cooper, the Aboriginal activist. 

In 2023, William Cooper’s grandson delivered a replica of William’s letter to the German Government in Berlin. This time it was accepted.  But the story continues...
 
On December 6th 2024,  the smoke of the fire-bombed Addas Israel Synagogue drifted across Melbourne. This day was also the 86th anniversary of William Cooper's initial protest. Coincidentally, on this same day, William’s great, great, grandson  was part of a delegation who met with  Nick Daikos, a member of Victoria’s State Government,  protesting against the persecution of the  Jewish community here in Australia. Former senator Nova Peris stood alongside Christian and Jewish leaders, calling for greater solidarity between Indigenous people and Jewish Australians.

Educators at both the Sydney Jewish Museum and Melbourne’s Holocaust Museum have become proactive in  inviting Australians to visit to increase their knowledge of history as a way of developing critical awareness and reflective skills. No doubt activists like Mark Davidson, Daniel and Janet Matthews, Thomas Shadrach James and William Cooper would support this as a positive initiative.