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THE STORY OF how an Irish-based survivor of the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp came close to meeting one of his jailers over 60 years after the Holocaust will be broadcast tonight.
Tomi Reichental – who has lived in Dublin since the 1960s, marrying here and raising a family – has become an inspirational figure by travelling to schools around Ireland to relate the devastation of what happened in those black years. He is the author of the book, I Was A Boy In Belsen. (You can read a previously-published extract from that on TheJournal.ie here.)
It was not always something he could bear to speak about. He tells the makers of Close to Evil, which is to show on RTÉ One tonight:
For over 50 years, I couldn’t talk about what I saw and went through. Six million people like me were murdered in the Shoah (Holocaust). Among them were 35 members of my family.
Tomi Reichental / Close to Evil Tomi Reichental / Close to Evil / Close to Evil
Tomi as a young boy before he was placed in Bergen-Belsen camp. Tomi Reichental / Close to Evil Tomi Reichental / Close to Evil / Close to Evil
However, following a radio interview about his traumatic past, a listener comes forward with some startling information – that one of the female jailers at Bergen-Belsen, Hilde Lisiewicz, is still alive – and that there might be a possibility that Tomi could meet her.
She was one of 31 found guilty of crimes against humanity in a trial in 1945. Eleven of these were executed, but Lisiewicz went on to marry and live in Hamburg.
The documentary follows Tomi’s extraordinary decision to try to reach out to her. It journeys with him to travel to his native village of Merasice in Slovakia, from which his family attempted to flee – and documents an extraordinary meeting that takes place.
This six-minute excerpt outlines why he felt the need to make peace with the demons of his past:
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The Taoiseach NOW thinks it’s time for sanctions as the USA is rethinking it’s murderous support of Israel.
Why can’t you lead instead of being led !
@David: Our hands are tied because our membership of the EU means we cannot unilaterally sanction these terrorist states. If we want to be serious about being a republic then we need to renegotiate our position within the(increasingly militaristic and corporate captured) EU. The Irish people didn’t vote for joining an entity that supports(or turns a closed eye to) genocide and now we need a conversation on whether our membership should involve bespoke measures that would allow us act according to our republican values IMO
@Sean: Supports Genocide lol – what a muppet.
@Sean: So much killing across the world Sean but see nothing from you about most of it – you are very selective – so by your own logic you also supoort genocide… or at the very least are happy to turn a blind eye to it when it suits your narrative huh!
@Podge: Yes, Israel has been conducting genocide on the Palestinian people.
Perhaps you should look up the definitions of genocide.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: you’re getting mixed up, Hamas commited genocide and rape on innocent civilians on Oct 7 and continue to do so
@Sean: There was a bill that passed through our courts, twice. That bill says we can “boycott” all products from Israel and any other colonized state. What are the EU gonna do, if someone stood up and said we are applying our own sanctions.
@Sean: and yes there does need to be a conversation, but I don’t see anyone with a spine in a senior position that would step forward and be counted.
Why do we have to refer to X as formerly twitter? It is X
@You’re Not Serious: Because “X” can be anything.
@Tezmond McVicar: I’d say you had a nightmare learning the alphabet
@Sean: just call it twitter coz that’s what it is.
@donal O’brien: fine by me Donal. Burst on
@Tezmond McVicar: that’s true. I put in x videos and something came up I didn’t expect or did I ………. Hmmmmm
@pBDSiMMi: Hahahaha. Just googled it. Give up that aul divilment!
@Sean: I’ve no idea what you are talking about …….
@Tezmond McVicar: Y ??????
@Tezmond McVicar: I heard tell that X marks the spot.
@Tezmond McVicar: what I am more amazed with is that twitter users were never referred to as “twits”.
Smiling While Gaza burns ,and FFG harbouring the Israeli Propaganda ambassador in her mansion in Dublin as voted for in the Dail
@Kevin O Brien: Here you are messing around on the internet while Gaza burns…
@Kevin O Brien: go forth to the front line with phone in hand
@Podge: i have Zero power unlike the people in Question
The Muslims only came into the area in 636.
During the Iron Age, two related Israelite kingdoms, Israel and Judah, controlled much of Palestine, while the Philistines occupied its southern coast. The kingdom gradually became a vassal of Rome, which annexed the area in 63 BCE. Roman Judea was troubled by large-scale Jewish revolts, which Rome answered with by destroying Jerusalem and the Second Jewish Temple.
In the 4th century, as the Roman Empire christened, Palestine became a center of Christianity, attracting pilgrims, monks and scholars. Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in 636–641, several Muslim ruling dynasties succeeded each other as they wrestled control of Palestine: the Rashiduns; the Umayyads, who built the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem
@thomas molloy: So…
@thomas molloy: Ah, here you are back – with your pseudo history this time – to try to justify the existence of the modern state of Israel, and its appalling atrocities on the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian people are semites.
They have been in that region since time immemorial.
They changed their religion, some to Christianity, most later to Islam.
(Just as we changed our religion to Chritianity.)
No one who claims descendancy from those who left these shores long ago has any right to return.
Any right to return and attack our government, set up their own state on our homeland, drive us off our homeland into enclaves.
No more than do the Israeli colonial invader of Palestine.
@thomas molloy: Heavy taxes on agricultural land forced many Jews to migrate from rural areas to towns. Social and economic discrimination caused significant Jewish emigration from Palestine, and Muslim civil wars in the 8th and 9th centuries pushed many Jews out of the country. All killing should stop to help the populations live together.
@thomas molloy: Jews have had a continuous presence in the land of Israel.
While the Romans expelled the majority of Jews in 70 CE, the Jewish people have always been present in the land of Israel. A portion of the Jewish population remained in Israel throughout the years of Jewish exile while the rest settled around the world and became the Jewish diaspora. In particular, Jewish communities existed throughout much of this period in what is known as the Four Holy Cities: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed (Tzfat), and Tiberias. Jerusalem is the most sacred, known for the Western Wall. Hebron is associated with the Cave of the Patriarchs, the traditional burial site of several important Biblical figures. Safed became the center of Jewish mysticism in the sixteenth century.
@thomas molloy: Bottom line …The State of Israel only exists because the British drew a line in the sand.
@thomas molloy: Yes, Jews have had a continuous existence in the land we call Palestine.
As have all other Palestinians.
That does not give Jews from other lands any right to invade Palestine, engage in terrorism, drive the Palestinian people off their land, and establish a state in the homeland of the Palestinian people, depriving those people of their lands, their homes, and their future.
Israel is the fruit of the poisoned tree.
It has no right to exist.
@Donal Desmond: Yes, while also creating a far larger Muslim Palestine called Jordan. The India Pakistan partition is another example.
people being butchered for days n u have these 2 fools chekin hands and smiling ..
Didn’t the UK abstain from the vote?
A uselss irish tory meets a disgraced english tory
You never know who you’d meet in London!
2 complete vvankers!
Voted in favour in General Assembly but abstained in Security Council ???
@Seanfhear míshásta: Look up the Sunak families conflict of interest with company Infosys and BP gas exploration in Gaza, all you need to know…
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