I can still see her you know, in my mind’s eye. She was a petite, attractive woman with fine features and an air of graceful resilience. She was one of those people who brought a smile to your face when you saw she was in the appointment book, because seeing her was always pleasant. Not that she came in often – she was fit, healthy and took very little medication, so perhaps a few times a year – for repeats, a flu shot and routine checkups.
It was 1998 and I had been a GP for 6 years in the small practice in Melbourne at which Eva was a long standing regular, along with her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Her husband and son were also regulars of the practice, but usually consulted my male colleague. It was late winter 1998 and, unusually, Eva was accompanied by her husband Jani as she came into my consulting room.
After we settled into our seats and exchanged pleasantries, I opened with my usual line of “So, what brings you in to see me today?” and Eva proceeded to describe a recurrent, seasonal burning sensation in her toes which seemed to be worsening as the years went on. As I bent to examine her feet, I could sense a tense interaction between Eva and Jani. “Tell her,” Jani urged, “tell her how this started”. I looked up. Eva seemed annoyed, and shook her head very slightly. I sat up and looked between the two, curious at this undertone between them, unprepared for what was about to be revealed next.
“It started in the concentration camp” Eva stated, flatly, looking to her feet, and this revelation seemed to please Jani, who nodded in support of his wife.
My favourite subject in senior was Modern History and I had studied WWII in detail, but although the practice I was a part of had a number of eastern Europeans of Jewish descent, to my shame, it had never occurred to me that this might be an important part of Eva’s history.
Jani went on to tell how they had both survived interments in concentration camps late in WWII. Hungarian by birth, they had witnessed the worst of human behaviour and Jani was convinced that Eva’s condition (chilblains) was directly related to the starvation and brutally cold conditions she had endured in the camp.
I listened, fascinated. I calculated that they would have been 14-18 years old at the time and suppressed a horrid thought of how incredibly vulnerable they would have been.
At some point, the conversation shifted onto politics. An election had just been called and Jani was keen to discuss the rise of the One Nation party. As a native born, bred and trained Queenslander, I had not been as surprised as many of my friends by the outcome of the 1996 election, reasoning that One Nation were giving voice to a disaffected minority. In my humble opinion, I thought that the movement would fizzle out. That, given enough rope, they would hang themselves, and I shared this opinion with Jani and Eva.
“I was there, in Hungary, and this is how it starts”. I can still hear his slow, deliberate emphasis. This.Is.How.It.Starts. and in that moment, I realised that I was wrong. This was not a case of “give them enough rope” but rather “all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to do nothing” and I had, like so many moderates, been silent/done nothing.
“If she gets elected, we will move to Israel. We will leave all we have behind and move to Israel. We may be poor, but we will not stave and we will be safe!” Jani stated with a fierce determination fueled by a history I had only read about, but which he and Eva had lived. I could only nod in recognition of their journey, I had no words.
Pauline Hanson lost the 1998 election, but come election night 2016, as I saw her triumphant face on the TV screen, I found myself transported back to that consultation room.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana)
Jani died of a heart attack and I had lost track of Eva after moving in 2000.
I don’t know how to do this, but Jani and Eva, #Istandwithyou. There is no them and us, there is only us, one species, inhabiting one planet. Different tribes, cultures, language and religions, but only one species. Kindness and love must win, the lessons of history, both that written in the past and that unraveling as I type, surely teach us that bigotry and hatred are paths to destruction and grief.
Those things that unite us are greater than those things that divide us.
And I remember.
Dr Adele Victoria
July 15, 2016
