On 27 September, 2017, our high schoolers had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet with a survivor of one of the Nazi concentration camps, Mr. Tomi Reichental of Dublin, Ireland. In preparation for his visit, the students read select chapters from his autobiographical book “I was a boy in Belsen” as well as discussed Holocaust in Europe and Slovakia in the History and Global Perspectives classes.
Mr. Reichental started his talk by sharing his life story with us. He was born in Piešťany in 1935 and spent most of his youth in Merašice — a small village between Hlohovec and Topoľčany. While he managed to evade the destiny of most of Slovak Jews – the lethal transport to Auschwitz — by living in hiding with a false identity and baptism certificate, in 1944, he and his entire family were eventually turned in and subsequently deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Only thanks to the fact that it was this close to the end of the war, he and some of his family members survived the harsh conditions of the transports and the concentration camp. Most of his 40+ relatives, however, were killed in the Nazi concentration, with only seven survivors. It was really sad to hear that Mr. Reichental and other children in the Bergen-Belsen camp would be playing among the corpses of dead inmates that served as their playground…
Our students listened to the personal story of Mr. Reichental with emotion and respect, many of them being deeply touched by his lecture.
At the end, the students and teachers had an opportunity to ask our guest speaker questions, which was followed by an interview carried out by our Journalism class.
Let us only hope that such atrocity will never ever happen in our country again!
Mr. Matej
