Review
Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof - "Justice, Justice you shall pursue" (Deuteronomy 16:18 - 21:9) is one of the most important precepts of religion and certainly it epitomises the life and struggle of Aboriginal activist and human rights leader, William Cooper.
There are many commentaries as to why the word "justice" is repeated twice in this verse and in the case of William Cooper, it has a particular bearing since he is known for pursuing justice on behalf of his own People, the Aborigines and also on behalf of the Jewish People following the seminal tragedy of Kristallnacht and its aftermath.
Barbara Miller, herself a fighter for justice, is probably the most authoritative author I know on the subject of William Cooper and his fight for justice for these two Peoples.
In her latest book, "Shattered Lives, Broken Dreams" Barbara expands on her earlier book entitled "William Cooper, Gentle Warrior" further outlining how the brave acts of William Cooper have helped to awaken in all Australians, the recognition that every one of us can make a difference.
Thanks to the dedicated work of what started as a few - I am privileged to be one of them - but today is a whole cadre of activists promoting the legacy of William Cooper , we have numerous areas were the name of William Cooper will forever be perpetuated, all outlined in "Shattered Lives, Broken Dreams."
I would venture to say that through the acts of William Cooper and his grandson Alfred (Uncle Boydie) Turner and other family members and friends, the face of Australia has changed forever and the recent naming of a federal electoral constituency after William Cooper is true testimony to this fact.
Barbara Miller has filled in many gaps for those of us interested in the struggle and as I said in Jerusalem in April 2009 at the planting of the first five of seventy trees being planted in honour of William Cooper's brave act marking the seventieth anniversary of Kristallnacht the previous November, "It is inconceivable for me coming from South Africa where in 1938 native people did not have the same rights as white people, to think that in Australia, an indigenous man who too did not enjoy full rights in the country of his birth, should have found it within himself to stand up for the plight of Jewish People. That man was William Cooper and I do not think it inappropriate to refer to him as the Martin Luther King of Australia."
Barbara Miller does the memory of William Cooper proud and indeed she does us all proud by bringing to us the amazing story of William Cooper and how his influence and brave deeds continue to inspire us to this day and will do so hopefully for generations to come. Barbara's new book will certainly go a long way to ensure this.
Rob Schneider,
William Cooper Legacy Project, CEO, Australian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hon. Representative in Australia of the Israel Nature & Parks Authority, former CEO of the Jewish National Fund of Australia and Development Director, Sydney Jewish Museum.
The Jewish people are commanded in the Torah to Zachor (Remember)!... and by reading and oft-repeating this narrative of Uncle William's life and legacy, by biographer Barbara Miller, we are fulfilling this sacred task.
Abe Schwarz
Convenor, William Cooper's Legacy
Barbara Miller's latest book Shattered Lives Broken Dreams takes the reader on a journey written almost as a travel diary. A journey that spans pre 1938 to the present day.
A lifetime's work of research, one on one interviews and travels across the Globe to share an eye witness account of history in the making.
Barbara Miller chronicles the hopes dreams and aspirations of William Cooper's legacy in her familiar, accessible, emotionally charged way.
Viv Parry
Past Board Director
Jewish Holocaust Centre, Melbourne
Barbara Miller has produced a must-have book on William Cooper the Upstander, and his important legacy.
Barbara documents key elements of this fascinating story of Aboriginal elder William Cooper's protest against the Nazi Germany's pogrom of its Jews on Kristallnacht in November 1938. We read about the response of the then Australian government, and then progress to the eventual re-discovery of the facts. Barbara gives us her personal but objective insight as to how members of William Cooper's family and diverse segments of the Australian community have come together to fulfil William Cooper's legacy of social justice, and of being an upstander rather than a bystander. A significant and valuable book for every home, school and university library.
Eli Rabinowitz
Founder - WE ARE HERE! Foundation
I am pleased to write a review for this important book which brings out the relationship between Evian and Kristallnacht and informs us of the brave stand of William Cooper. This is my family's story. My parents, brother, maternal grandmother and I arrived in Australia in January 1939. My parents tried in vain to get visas for my German family, who were murdered in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, my beautiful 18 and 20-year-old cousins included. The Evian Conference in July 1938 was just four months before Kristallnacht...
Evian was a definite turning point in modern Jewish history. By the time the Conference took place, the Nazis had persecuted the Jews for six years. The Nuremberg Laws had deprived the Jews of most of their rights as citizens. There were economic boycotts. There were book-burnings. They were excluded from their professions. They were forbidden to sit, shop, and visit in certain places, to employ Christians and associate with them. There were physical harassments and occasional attacks. As yet there were no mass deportations or large-scale brutal assaults on a country-wide basis. These began after Evian.
Following the Nazi Anschluss with Austria in April 1938, the Jewish refugee problem worsened as a further 180,000 Jews came under Nazi rule. President Franklin D Roosevelt convened an international conference to discuss the refugee crisis.
Held in Evian, France, in June 1938, thirty-eight countries were represented. The negative position of the Australian government, which announced that it would not liberalise its alien immigration policy from an annual quota of 5000, or 15,000 over three years, was representative of all participating nations.
Following the conference came the Kristallnacht attacks of November 1938. The Australian High Commissioner in London, Stanley Bruce, recommended that the quota should be doubled, but the government rejected this proposal.
Josie Lacey OAM
Past president and life member of Australian WIZO and WIZO NSW
Recipient of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies inaugural President's Award
Life member of the Ethnic Communities Council of NSW and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry
From the Author
My book William Cooper Gentle Warrior: Standing Up for Australian Aborigines and Persecuted Jews was published in November 2012. In updating it in 2019, I have found it to be too big for one book so I have created the William Cooper Gentle Warrior Series and No 1 book is focusing on William Cooper's Aboriginal activism and No 2 book is focusing on his activism on behalf of the Jewish community. In both books, his grandson Uncle Boydie or Alf Turner and other family members have carried on his legacy and fulfilled William's unfulfilled dreams. So, the story continues.
Also, as William Cooper was a pioneer of the Aboriginal movement for human rights in Australia, much of what has happened since his passing has built on the platform he established. This means book No 1, White Australia Has A Black History: William Cooper and First Nations Peoples' Political Activism really becomes a history of Indigenous affairs from contact till today. However, William Cooper was not alone. The stories of other key Aboriginal leaders of his time and beyond are also covered.
Now I am publishing the companion volume Shattered Lives Broken Dreams: William Cooper and Australian Aborigines Protest Holocaust or more specifically Kristallnacht. It is no 2 in the William Cooper Series. The actions of William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines' League have built a bridge between Aborigines and Jews that continues to get bigger as the following generations celebrate his legacy. It is not just the man William Cooper that is celebrated in standing up for Jews persecuted at Kristallnacht, the start of the Holocaust. He has become a symbol of an Upstander who stood up for Jews when he was not a citizen of his own nation, Australia, and could not vote, such was the oppression of the time.
It is a privilege for me to bring this story to you. As you will see, I became part of the unfolding story and maybe you will too.
From the Inside Flap
William Cooper and his people sang a song of freedom called "Drowned old Pharaoh's army" or Ngarra Burra Ferra in their Yorta Yorta language.
They may have sung it when he led the march to the German Consulate in 1938 to protest the "cruel treatment of the Jews" at Kristallnacht. The first verse is based on the Song of Moses:
"When Moses struck the waters
The waters came together
And drowned (old) boss Pharaoh's army, alleluiah."
So how did this songline reach from the Red Sea to an Aboriginal group by the Murray River in Australia? And how did it travel that vast distance in time, nearly 4,000 years? Read the book to find out.
About the Author
Barbara is a historian, pastor, mediator, psychologist, sociologist, teacher & social justice advocate. She lives in Australia with her husband Norman, an Aboriginal artist & pastor. She has been recognised by Who's Who for her international humanitarian work.
Her memoir White Woman Black Heart: Journey Home to Old Mapoon was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards in 2018 for the main prize, the Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance.
Barbara's first book on the Holocaust was the biography called William Cooper, Gentle Warrior: Standing Up for Indigenous Australians and Persecuted Jews in 2012. Cooper was a Christian Aboriginal Australian who led one of the few private protests worldwide against Kristallnacht in 1938.
Barbara's own history of activism and her work for Aboriginal organisations such as the North Queensland Land Council which she helped establish in 1975 and the Aboriginal Coordinating Council (ACC) of which she was CEO in the 1990s, have given her an insider's view. She wrote The Dying Days of Segregation in Australia: Case Study Yarrabah detailing the work of Aborigines to get human rights, land rights and local government.
If I Survive: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 100-year-old Lena Goldstein's Miracle Story is Barbara's second book on the Holocaust and is a gripping biography of a Warsaw Ghetto survivor.
Her sixth book is White Australia Has A Black History: William Cooper and First Nations Peoples' Political Activism. He was a pioneer of the Aboriginal movement for civil rights and shaped Australia's political activism. The book covers Indigenous efforts to secure human rights right up to 2019 including current calls for Voice, Treaty, Truth.
Shattered Lives Broken Dreams updates the honouring of William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines' League for their protest against Kristallnacht. It weaves in Australia's reaction to Evian and Jewish refugees and the Cooper family's efforts to keep his legacy going.
