Dr Donna-Lee Frieze Reports on International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

Dr Donna-Lee Frieze is a Genocide studies scholar, specialising in memory and aftermath studies. Donna is a Research Fellow and teaches the Holocaust at Deakin University, a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University and a genocide scholar in residence at the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne. Donna is an expert for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and has reported on her May 2016 trip to Bucharest:

My trip to the Romanian capital Bucharest in May this year was the second as an expert for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The Alliance is an inter-governmental body that presently consists of 31 member countries that meets twice a year. Australia has recently become an Observer country which means that it nominated 8 experts to represent the country across four working groups that include 2 people each for the Museums and Memorials, Education, Communication and Academia working groups. Australia nominated me for the Academic working group and my colleague and CHRG member Steven Cooke for the Communications working group. Thus, for the majority of the time, we were separated into our working groups, but as Australia is not a Member country, most of us could only observe the meetings rather than participate in them. However, we had the support of our Head Delegate Ambassador David Ritchie, who was well informed, supportive and great company.

However, there are committee groups where we do have a voice. In the Committee for the Holocaust, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, I gave a paper on the legal specificities of prevention in the United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Members requested a history and analysis of the growth in definitions of genocide as employed by Raphael Lemkin. I will be presenting this paper at the next meeting in Iasi, Romania in November this year.

Australia is now during the stages of applying for Liaison status with IHRA, the next and final step to becoming a Member country, which we hope will be finalised before the next meeting in Iasi.