A survivor of a Nazi concentration camp remembers life before the outbreak of war and what he endured in Bergen Belsen.
Tomi Reichental was born in Slovakia 1935 and had an idyllic childhood growing up in a small country village. It was only when he had to change school, wear the yellow star and was subjected to abuse in public that he became aware of the hostility towards Jews.
Slovakia's Jewish Codex, a series of laws and regulations which erased the country’s Jews of their civil rights, was ratified in 1941. It made daily life even more difficult for Tomi’s family and community,
We were ostracised from the society.
Along with his mother, brother, grandmother and other relatives, Tomi was sent to Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp in November 1944. There he endured starvation, cruelty and disease.
The camp was situated in the middle of a forest, but Tomi never heard birdsong there. People were dying in such great numbers every day, that
It was an open graveyard, we saw these piles and piles of corpses.
Camp guard Irma Grese had come to Bergen-Belsen from Auschwitz-Birkenau and was known for her brutality towards prisoners,
There were 12 guards executed after the Liberation, she was one of them.
A new camp commander, Josef Kramer, arrived towards the end of the war and conditions worsened,
He was a sadist, he was a beast of Belsen.
By the time British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945 most prisoners were so ill that they were unable to celebrate,
There was a muted welcome.
This episode of 'The God Slot’ was broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on 27 January 2012. The presenter is Eileen Dunne.
‘The God Slot’ was a religious affairs programme broadcast on Friday evenings on RTÉ Radio 1.
