Holocaust survivors with Irish links highlighted in Dublin exhibition

A new exhibition commemorating the lives of Holocaust survivors with connections to Ireland aims to “open up Holocaust education to more people than might be seeking it out,” organisers said.

The exhibition, titled They became us: the unlikely of lives of Holocaust survivors in Ireland, opened in the Camerino Bakery Café on Dublin’s Merrion Square on Wednesday.

Caryna Camerino, who owns the cafe and is on the board of Holocaust Education Ireland, says showcasing a series of portraits of Holocaust survivors is a key step in highlighting Irish links to the atrocities committed during the second World War.

“I wanted the exhibition to be not so much about the suffering during or after the Holocaust,” says Ms Camerino, whose four grandparents survived the atrocity.

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“It’s not about people who are foreign. Holocaust survivors are Irish, they came here after a traumatic experience, they were displaced and they made a life here. They’re not others, they’re within our community.

“I wanted it [the exhibition] to be in a place where people could see these portraits passively. Customers in the cafe can see them – they don’t have to attend an event on the Holocaust to be educated about it.”

Tomi Reichental, who was born in Slovakia and was liberated from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, is one of the survivors featured in the exhibition.

Speaking at its unveiling, Mr Reichental explained the portraits were as much about highlighting atrocities across the world as well as the Holocaust.

“I feel so honoured to see my picture in this exhibition,” says Mr Reichental, who lives in Rathgar. “For me, it’s actually very important that these types of events take place so that the Holocaust is not forgotten.

“When we came back from the concentration camp, we had this proverb: ‘never again’. Of course since the war, we have several events of genocide that we never forget also.”

Mr Reichental (88) frequently speaks to schoolchildren in a bid to educate them about his experience in a Nazi concentration camp.

He has been awarded honorary doctorates from three universities as well as honours from the German, Slovakian and British governments in recognition of his contribution to Holocaust education.

“When I asked students what they know about the Holocaust they usually say: ‘well six million Jewish people died,’ that’s all they knew about,” said Mr Reichental. “Even less about survivors.

“If I ask: ‘do you know anything of how we survived?’ [The answer is] no. They never talk about it. They talk about the tragedy, Auschwitz, Buchenwald and all these extermination camps. At the time, [they knew] very little, but today they know much more.”

The exhibition runs in the Camerino Bakery Café until May 23rd.