LAST Thursday saw the annual Holocaust Memorial Day observed with a solemn and moving event at Belfast City Hall.
The years go by very quickly, but the same memories and messages repeat each time. This year was different, however, as it reflected the tragic events in the Middle East.
For me, the day brings back memories of sitting in the Kilkeel home of the late Edith Kohner, who died in 2009, and hearing her talk of her own experiences in the years which followed the Holocaust.
Why do we mark #HolocaustMemorialDay (HMD)? HMD shows us where prejudice can lead when it is normalised and encouraged.
— Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (@HMD_UK) January 24, 2025
On #HMD2025, we will remember the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. We will also commemorate the millions of people murdered through Nazi… pic.twitter.com/nhXAlZ8lyp
Edith told me: “In the few months prior to World War Two, almost 10,000 Jewish children were taken from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland and brought to the UK and Ireland with the Kindertransports.
“The Jews were being persecuted and parents had little option but to send their sons and daughters to safety, far away from what was to become know as the Holocaust.”
Read more
Can you imagine the agony of saying goodbye to toddlers and teenagers wondering if you’d ever see them again? And how on earth must those children have felt, snatched away from all that was loved and familiar.
Eighty-five years ago Edith, her husband and their two daughters escaped Nazi persecution in Czechoslovakia. Dr Franz Joseph Kohner, a prominent barrister in Prague, lost fortune, home and position and 23 members of the family.
The couple ended up settling to live and work on a 70-acre resettlement farm in Co Down, where Franz looked after the administration, trained the boys who wanted to join up for war service and his bi-lingual wife helped the bewildered children accept their new home.
Eighty-five years ago Edith, her husband and their two daughters escaped Nazi persecution in Czechoslovakia to live and work on a farm in Co Down
It was bewildering for me too
“I remember getting off the boat, it was women and children first,” said Edith.
“I couldn’t understand that this included Jewish women and children: we’d been so brainwashed by the Hitler regime, I stood back before I realised it meant me too.”
It was obvious that this gentle and dignified lady still remembered the shock of being given ‘status’.
“Unless you’ve lost freedom, you don’t know what freedom is.”
The Kohner family and the refugee children settled in Millisle in what was to become their home for the next four years. They slept in tents until the old farmhouse and outbuildings were converted, dormitories for boys and girls, with washrooms, a communal area and a synagogue for worship.
Unless you’ve lost freedom, you don’t know what freedom is
— Edith Kohner
There, they were able to hear the news with no restriction on Jews listening to the wireless, unlike at home in Czechoslovakia, and it must have been chilling when they could sometimes see German planes flying towards Belfast.
“I was only 27, but I tried as best I could to be a mother to the children,” explained Edith.
“The youngest was eight and, like the rest of the younger ones, he went to the local school where the teacher put one refugee beside a local pupil so they would learn the language more quickly. It worked quite well!”
She laughed: “I remember one day when we were out walking, a child asked me to ‘unbutton’ the gate.”
Market gardening
In 1939, land was cultivated so the children could grow and market lettuce, radishes, onions and vegetables. 30 cows grazed the pastures and butter and cream were made in the well-equipped dairy - a new and bewildering experience for the children.
On his first evening at the farm, one young boy ventured to ask how much bread he could take.
“As much as you want”, was the reply, so he filled his pockets thinking it might be the only time he’d be offered bread.
A little girl was mesmerised by the jewel coloured jelly, something she had never seen before in her short life. Most fretted dreadfully for their parents: tragically, many would never go home because there would be no home to go to.
After the war, Edith Kohner kept in touch with some of the children.
“One girl wanted to become a nurse, so I got her into Newtownards Hospital to train. Today, her brother is a professor in Manchester and another is a well-known film actor living in Austria.”
Looking back, Edith’s her memories were vivid. She talked about the diabetic boy who was looked after by the little girl he eventually married; about the wonderful man from Vienna who entertained the children with his saxophone playing; about Mr Solomon giving them records and the local people coming to the hall for concerts and dances; of Mrs Leech and her trays of scones, all trying to give family love to these brave displaced children before they found more permanent homes around the world.
It’s a bleak picture, but a true one. It is remembered by a plaque on the wall of the synagogue in Belfast commemorating the little band of children and adults who ended up in Millisle.
