by Michael Samaras
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Wollongong should not be the only city in the world with an art gallery that honours a Nazi.
The revelations about Bronius 'Bob' Sredersas' war time activities have come as a terrible shock to many people in Wollongong. But the only thing more terrible than this discovery would be if we ignored it.
The documents I obtained show that Sredersas was working for the SD in the Lithuanian city of Kauen (the German name for the city of Kaunas).
The SD, or to use its full title, the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsfuhrers - SS, (which translates as the Security Service of the Reichsfuhrer SS), was the intelligence section of the SS.
It was established by the mass murderer Reinhard Heydrich, and was deeply involved in the Holocaust.
After the war, at the Nuremburg trials, the International Military Tribunal, declared the members of the SD, including local representatives and agents, to be criminals.
The Tribunal found: "The Gestapo and SD were used for purposes which were criminal under the Charter involving the persecution and extermination of the Jews, brutalities and killings in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of occupied territories, the administration of the slave labour programme and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war."
Given these facts, I was distressed by the Wollongong City Council's decision to take no action on the documents I provided to them about Sredersas.
I advised the Council to consult the Sydney Jewish Museum, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre or an academic expert to learn more about the Holocaust in Lithuania, the Kovno ghetto and Kauen concentration camp, and what the appropriate next steps should be.
Unfortunately, this suggestion was rejected out of hand with the Council emailing me to advise that it "does not propose to take any further steps in this matter."
Across the suburbs of Wollongong there are war memorials that honour local people who died in the Second World War while fighting fascism and Hitler's Nazi regime.
It is bewildering, given what is now known about Sredersas, that the Council thinks it can honour a Nazi and SD man in the Wollongong Art Gallery.
The Council's 'do nothing' decision must not stand.
Michael Samaras served as a councillor with Wollongong City Council between 1991 to 1995. A 2018 exhibition, The Gift, honouring the life of benefactor Bronious "Bob" Sredersas left him wanting to know more about the ambiguous past of Bob in during World War II.
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