Published: 25 May 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
THE NSW JEWISH BOARD of Deputies has been criticised over a delay in acknowledging that Yad Vashem provided an incorrect exhibit for an exhibition that the Board hosted at NSW Parliament House during the month of February.
The exhibition, titled Beyond Duty, identified 34 diplomats who have been declared “Righteous Among The Nations” for their efforts to help Jews avoid persecution and death during World War 2. It contained panels based on materials and research provided by Yad Vashem.
At the exhibition opening on February 3, a member of the public, Emeritus Professor Andrew Jakubowicz, alerted the Board of Deputies (JBOD) to an error relating to an image on one of the panels about the Consul for the Republic of China in Vienna, and asked for it to be corrected. JBOD’s statement was issued on May 15.
The fact that the exhibition proceeded with no alert to attendees raises questions about whether truth or ‘soft diplomacy’ was the higher value selected for foregrounding - Professor Andrew Jakubowicz
Professor Jakubowicz was adviser to the Sydney Jewish Museum exhibition on Shanghai and the Jews of China in 2001, and has written extensively about the Polish Jewish refugee community in Shanghai. In response to the statement by JBOD, he told The Jewish Independent he had mixed feelings. “I am glad that the JBOD has finally published a clarification ... even though this has happened months after the exhibition closed.
Professor Jakubowicz said the delay in issuing a correction sent an undesirable message to the public. “The fact that the exhibition proceeded with no alert to attendees raises questions about whether truth or ‘soft diplomacy’ was the higher value selected for foregrounding.”
The delay nothing to do with soft diplomacy; there was no way we could issue a correction without first doing due diligence and checking with both Yad Vashem and the Embassy of Israel [a co-sponsor of the exhibition], which we promptly did - JBOD head Vic Alhadeff
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies CEO Vic Alhadeff responded: “The issue is less conspiratorial than my friend, Professor Jakubowicz, might have one believe. There was no way we could issue a correction without first doing due diligence and checking with both Yad Vashem and the Embassy of Israel [a co-sponsor of the exhibition], which we promptly did.
“It can take time for questions of historical accuracy to be resolved, and as soon as we received a clarifying statement from scholars at Yad Vashem, we posted it on our website and Facebook and circulated it on our fortnightly bulletin to our entire database.
“The delay in doing so had nothing to do with soft diplomacy and everything to do with verifying that the professor was correct in his claim that one of the images on one of the posters was incorrect.”
Professor Jakubowicz received an email from Yad Vashem on March 12, acknowledging the error and apologising for it, and for the delay in responding to his complaint. "I can assure you that the placement of that image was the result of an honest completely unintentional human error which occurred during the production of the exhibition several years ago," wrote Dr Joel Zisenwine, the director of the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem.
"There were no ideological or political considerations involved in this process, or that influenced it in any way. Of course we regret this error and are working presently to correct it. I apologise as well for the delay in updating you regarding the substance of our examination."
The error related to a panel about Ho Feng Shan, Consul for the Republic of China in Vienna, who provided visas to mainly Austrian Jews so that they could obtain exit permits from the Nazis. One of the three images in the panel “purports to be a copy of a Ho visa, for transit through Shanghai, for a refugee from Vienna named Feldman,” according to Professor Jakubowicz.
“But the visa on display was not issued by Ho, was not for Shanghai, was not issued in Vienna, and was not provided on behalf of the Government of China. It was provided by Wang Ti Fu, an official of the Japanese puppet Manchukuo government, in Berlin, for transit through Manchukuo entering at Manchouli on its western border with the USSR.”
[gallery columns="1" size="large" ids="35693"]
In a “Clarification” notice posted on May 15, the Board of Deputies said: “Yad Vashem has acknowledged the inaccuracy and expressed its regret. [It] acknowledges that the visa displayed in the panel was placed there in error. It was issued for a Jewish refugee, on behalf of the Manchuko [sic] regime, by a diplomat who has not been recognised as Righteous Among The Nations.
“We have been informed by Yad Vashem that the panel in question will henceforth include a photograph of an authenticated visa issued by Ho.”
[gallery columns="1" size="large" ids="35694"]
Professor Jakubowicz told The Jewish Independent the statement should have included more background. The wording is “circumspect and may not help the average reader to work out what happened, or about whom the mistake was made,” he said.
He added that it should have been titled “Correction and Apology”, rather than “Clarification”.
Main photo: The incorrect visa presented in the exhibition, Beyond Duty; all photos courtesy of Andrew Jakubowitz
