Greg Bouwer
IINZ
Eva Geller escaped the persecution of Europe’s Jews, rebuilt her life in Australia and lived to see her 90th birthday. But 80 years after the Holocaust, antisemitism found her again.
On 5 November 2026, Eva Geller died in Sydney. She was 90 years old.
Almost 11 months earlier, she had attended a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach. Families had gathered to celebrate a Jewish festival of religious freedom and survival. Children were playing. Candles were to be lit.
Then two gunmen opened fire.
Fifteen people were murdered, including 10-year-old Matilda. Eva was shot in the legs. She survived, but never truly recovered.
Doctors told her she would never walk again. According to her rabbi, Aron Moss, she defied them. Through sheer determination, she managed to walk. But the injuries took a terrible toll. She spent much of the following year in hospital, rehabilitation or bedridden.
She died just days after her 90th birthday.
And Eva Geller was a Holocaust survivor.
As a child, she had escaped the persecution of European Jews, arriving in Australia from Hungary with her mother and grandmother. Her late husband was also a Holocaust survivor.
Together, they belonged to a generation that had witnessed the consequences of antisemitism when hatred became state policy and ultimately genocide.
Australia offered them something different: safety, freedom and the opportunity to rebuild their lives.
Eighty years later, Eva was shot while celebrating her Jewish culture and faith in an Australian public park.
The historical circumstances were different. The perpetrators were different. Bondi was not the Holocaust. But the continuity of antisemitic hatred is impossible to ignore.
What happened to Never Again?
For 80 years, Western democracies have commemorated the Holocaust with a solemn promise: Never Again.
We build memorials, establish museums, teach children about Auschwitz and invite survivors to explain what happens when societies tolerate antisemitism.
Yet here was a Holocaust survivor, precisely the sort of person we honour as a witness to history, shot at a Jewish religious celebration in one of Australia’s most recognisable public spaces.
There is something profoundly wrong with a society that solemnly commemorates the persecution of Jews in the past while Jewish communities require extraordinary security simply to practise their religion in the present.
The murder of Jews because they are Jews is exactly the danger that Holocaust remembrance is supposed to teach us to recognise.
And it is not enough to condemn that danger after the bodies have fallen.
Contemporary antisemitism is frequently disguised as political opposition to Israel. The Jewish nation is portrayed as a unique evil in the world, much like Jews were in the past, and Jewish communities are expected to answer for the state.
But whatever grievances terrorists claim, shooting Jews at a religious festival is not criticism of Israeli policy. It is antisemitic terrorism.
The distinction should not require explanation. Yet increasingly, it does.
Beyond the condolences
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the attack as terrorism and antisemitism. NSW Premier Chris Minns described Eva’s death as heartbreaking.
Their condolences were appropriate. But sympathy after an atrocity is no substitute for confronting the hatred that precedes it.
Australia’s Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, established after the massacre, is expected to report in December. Its findings will matter far beyond Australia.
New Zealand should pay attention.
We have seen Jewish and Israeli New Zealanders subjected to intimidation, hostility and violence. We have heard political leaders in several parties describe an ‘ongoing genocide’ in 2026 and commit to treating Israel accordingly. We have watched political grievances (real and imagined) against Israel spill into hostility towards Jews. Leaders must stop inflaming ancient prejudices with more modern twists on the old libels.
The freedom of Jewish New Zealanders to worship, celebrate, express their identity and live without intimidation must not depend on their views about Israel.
Nor should they have to conceal their Jewishness to feel safe.
That is not a special privilege. It is the minimum expectation of citizenship in a free society.
Remember Eva Geller
Eva Geller survived the Holocaust, crossed continents, built a family and lived for nine decades. She survived the bullets fired at Bondi and fought to walk again.
Her life should be remembered for far more than the violence inflicted upon her in its final year.
But we cannot ignore the terrible significance of what happened.
A Jewish child who escaped the Holocaust grew old in the safety of Australia, only to be shot while celebrating a Jewish festival.
The police and coroner must still determine the formal circumstances of her death. But the moral significance of her suffering requires no such determination.
She survived the Holocaust. She should never have had to survive Bondi.
And if Never Again is to mean anything, it must mean more than remembering Jews who were murdered 80 years ago.
It must mean protecting Jews who are alive today.
This article was originally published by the Israel Institute of New Zealand.
