Letter to the Editor – The Australian

Gift of a different sort
The Australian
August 3, 2022

Fiona Harari’s excellent piece in The Weekend Australian Magazine sheds an important light on the troubled legacy of Bob Sredersas and his Nazi past (“The Gift”, 30-31/7).

When the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies first learned about these serious allegations in March, we contacted Wollongong City Council to offer our assistance to get to the bottom of Sredersas’s history. We did so because the Jewish and broader Wollongong community deserved to know about this individual’s true past.

The Jewish Board of Deputies welcomes council’s response to the recent investigation and the actions it has taken in the wake of the findings. Together with the Sydney Jewish Museum, we are arranging for the report’s author, Professor Konrad Kwiet, to brief Wollongong Council on Sredersas. We are also pleased that Wollongong Art Gallery has agreed to host a Courage to Care exhibition next year that informs and educates Australians about the dangers of prejudice, racism and discrimination.

In her piece Harari quotes Sredersas as having once said, “I have done some bad things in my life,” adding: “I hope these (artworks) will be useful to the children of Wollongong.”

As an opportunity to educate the community about the horrors of the Holocaust, his wish may have come true.

Darren Bark, chief executive, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies