Sir, - This is a sequel to the story of two children. Fifty-two years ago, in the spring of 1948, over 100 stateless, homeless and dispossessed Jewish children were allowed to enter Ireland. Most were Holocaust survivors, orphans, yearning to secure a new lease on life. They were rescued from Eastern Europe, just before the Iron Curtain descended over Czechoslovakia.
The history of this transport and its subsequent designation as the "Clonyn Castle Children" is described by Professor Dermot Keogh, head of the department of history at University College, Cork, in Jews in Twentieth-Century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust (Cork University Press, 1998, pp. 209216).
We are two of these "children". We were admitted to Ireland on a temporary basis. We spent many happy months in Clonyn Castle, Delvin, Co Westmeath. Indeed, to all of us, Ireland was a prelude to our rebirth. We were free and safe, full of hope, and confident of a promising future.
Two years later, almost all of us had emigrated and resettled in different corners of the world. We two are living in the United States. Now we are planning to revisit Ireland for the first time, during the first week of May. For both of us this is a sentimental journey and a rendezvous with a fading past. On the top of our list of places to revisit is Clonyn Castle, as well as Dublin and Dun Laoghaire.
We hope that during our stay we can thank the people of Ireland for having provided us with this haven. We will never forget your generosity. - Yours, etc., Alfred Kahan and Murray A. Lynn,
Brookline, Massachusetts. Atlanta, Georgia, USA.