Survivors of concentration camps in Ireland

RIRI

I was wandering around our local graveyard this evening and I spotted a gentleman's grave, on it it said he was a survivor of Auschwitz. This got me thinking about how he might have arrived here. Perhaps one of you could tell me whether there Ireland gave refuge to survivors of the camps after the war please?

I have done a search of the forums & google etc but can't find anything, nor can I find any further information on the gentleman in question - he does have living relatives so obviously want to respect their privacy.

Thanks in advance

Catherine

Delancey

Ireland did take in a relatively tiny number of Jewish child refugess after the war ( Irelands record under De Valera of giving refuge to those persecuted was a matter of shame to this country in my opinion ).
Anyway , a few of those children are still living in Ireland as elderly men and women and still give talks to schools , etc about their experiences. You usually hear something about them around the annual Holocaust Memorial Day.

RIRI

Thanks Delancy - by all accounts we really could have done better in this regard.
I will keep an eye out for their stories closer to the holocaust memorial day so.

Cheers

C

Donny5

Delancey wrote: »

Anyway , a few of those children are still living in Ireland as elderly men and women and still give talks to schools , etc about their experiences. You usually hear something about them around the annual Holocaust Memorial Day.

I don't suppose you know how I could contact those persons. I would be extremely interested to speak to those about their experiences, should they be amicable to such an idea.

Delancey

Donny5 wrote: »

I don't suppose you know how I could contact those persons. I would be extremely interested to speak to those about their experiences, should they be amicable to such an idea.

Best thing to do is try Googling for them - you should be able to turn up a few newspaper articles that give their names and possibly some idea of how to contact them. Good luck !

byhookorbycrook

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/holocaust-survivor-zoltan-recalls-nazi-horrors-2602032.html

this person has spoken in a number of schools I know of.

Fuinseog

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/holocaust-survivor-zoltan-recalls-nazi-horrors-2602032.html

this person has spoken in a number of schools I know of.

if that is Tom Reichental he also has a book out. I believed he was five or six when he was interned.

Tzar Chasm

Delancey wrote: »

Ireland did take in a relatively tiny number of Jewish child refugess after the war ( Irelands record under De Valera of giving refuge to those persecuted was a matter of shame to this country in my opinion ).
Anyway , a few of those children are still living in Ireland as elderly men and women and still give talks to schools , etc about their experiences. You usually hear something about them around the annual Holocaust Memorial Day.

This shot still annoys me

Explain what Ireland, a broke 3rd world agrarian economy who's main export at the time was its people could have done anything more than a tokenistic effort to help resettle survivors of the concentration camps?

Hey you, ben persecuted for your religion in mainland europe
Come to Ireland, our inclement weather will surely help those diseases you got in the camps
Never mind that our insular population is staunchly catholic and still hold you responsible for the crucifiction
So come on over, at least the racial abuse will sound mure lyrical in an irish brogue

Stovepipe

Hi there
Your sarcasm is missing the point; the State didn't go out of it's way to help Jews even though it was common knowledge of what had been perpetrated against them. It also managed to add to the slur by bringing in Non-Jewish Germans without any difficulty. There was a significant body of sympathy for Germany and some of it was apparent in some Catholic, Army(one Captain was disciplined for writing praise for the decision to exclude the "Christ-Killers"-his words, in a letter to a newspaper)and Diplomatic (one Ambassador was a well-known anti-Semite) circles. Ultimately, this wasn't confined to Jews as the debacle of the Hungarian refugees in 1956 highlighted. The Hungarians became inconvenient because they were insufficiently grateful and most left.
What a great nation.

regards
Stovepipe

Tzar Chasm

well there ya go making my point for me.

The Irish people have a right to decide who may or may not enter the Country, the State exercises the wishes of the people, so if the population is not in favour admitting a group of people then those people will not be admitted.

its all well and good to look back on that period of history and Tut Tut about how you would have done things diferently, but seriously, would you? what differece would you have made?

Stovepipe

I don't think the State felt it needed to ask the actual people what they thought. They did the usual and did the thinking for them. As the Hungarian episode showed, the provisioning was scant and deliberately so. They could have accomodated a few hundred refugees without breaking sweat. The State has been shown many times to be indecently miserly when it comes to providing for large quantities of people. It treated it's own Defence Forces appallingly so for years and it took several embarrassing cases for the State to be compelled to build proper quarters for it's men, such as the time when civilian prisoners were meant to be housed in Spike Island. The prisoners rioted at being given hugely substandard naval personnel quarters and rioted and the Prison Service refused to accept the detention centre until it was totally refurbished. same ol same ol.

regards
Stovepipe

Fuinseog

Delancey wrote: »

Ireland did take in a relatively tiny number of Jewish child refugess after the war ( Irelands record under De Valera of giving refuge to those persecuted was a matter of shame to this country in my opinion ).
Anyway , a few of those children are still living in Ireland as elderly men and women and still give talks to schools , etc about their experiences. You usually hear something about them around the annual Holocaust Memorial Day.

I think the problem was putting Non Christian kids in Catholic homes. both religions would have had a problem with that.
Germany was starving in 1946 but Ireland only took in Catholic kids. No protestants needed to apply. even then only 700? were admitted.
AS others have pointed out Ireland was not among the wealthiest nations in the world at the time. How many refugees should we have admitted
there are wars gong on all over the world today and kids in need of refuge, should we not take them all in?