When Michael Visontay heard of the shootings at Bondi Beach on Sunday, his first instinct was to call his son, who often swam there. Then came the sickening feeling of dread, when his son didn’t answer his phone.

Something that thickened this dread even further, was a family history that taught him to always be alert to possible threats. His father and grandfather survived the Holocaust after living in concentration camps. His maternal grandmother was killed in Auschwitz.

Visontay is far from alone. Australia has a higher proportion of Holocaust survivors than any country in the world, besides Israel.

Today, Michael Visontay, author of the book Noble Fragments, and a former senior editor at The Sydney Morning Herald, on how this unique makeup of Australian Jewry impacts their response to the Bondi terror attack.

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