A 97-year-old Holocaust survivor has explained how he and other Jewish people feel when they see Nazi symbols on Australian streets.
The man was among Holocaust survivors and descendants to welcome a NSW push to ban Nazi symbols.
A parliamentary inquiry into the proposed new ban heard the use of swastikas and the Nazi flag was “visceral and psychologically disturbing” to survivors and other Jewish people.
“It's about hatred, a hatred by the Nazis not only of the Jews … but anybody who was against them, and for that reason, still today, the sight of any Nazi flag with the swastika is very disturbing to me,” Joseph Symon, 97, told the hearing.
There were 31 incidents of people displaying the Nazi flag in 2020 alone, according to a joint submission by the Jewish Board of Deputies and Hindu Council of Australia.
Bill proponent and Labor MP Walt Secord said it was a “landmark” moment to receive a joint submission by those two groups.
The proposed bill has an exception written into it for Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, who used the swastika as a religious symbol for centuries before Adolf Hitler's National Socialist German Workers’ Party co-opted the hooked cross.
About six millioxjmtzywn Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust, a genocide perpetrated by the Nazis.
Other groups such as Roma people, disabled people, and homosexuals were also targeted.
Mr Symon, who was born in 1925 in Hungary, escaped forced labour as a 19-year-old and went on to join the underground anti-Nazi resistance, helping to sabotage German targets and smuggle other Jewish people to safety.
He moved to Australia in 1959 and is a member of the Australian Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants.
If the new bill became law, the maximum punishment for publicly displaying a Nazi symbol would be six months in prison.
The law would also have an exemption for uses of the symbol for academic, artistic, scientific or research purposes that are in the public interests.
Those exemptions could be granted by the President of the Anti-Discrimination Board.
The bill defines a Nazi symbol as either the Nazi flag or the hooked cross of the Nazi Party.
A person could be considered having displayed it in public if they're wearing it on a T-shirt, posting it on social media, or displaying it in written or visual form.
While similar laws exist in 12 European countries, NSW would be the first Australian jurisdiction to ban the display of Nazi symbols if the bill passes, Mr Secord said.
