Hearing a first hand account from one of the few remaining holocaust survivors of what it was like to be as a young boy in a concentration camp during the war is a rare experience and one that students from Scoil Pól in Kilfinane were lucky enough to have on Thursday last.

Tomi Reichental spoke to students from third to sixth year, as well as staff and members of the community about his life, including his time at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in 1944.

Not for the faint hearted, Tomi gave an honest, but vivid account of what life was like in the camp, but most poignantly, he also spoke in depth about the ordinary and normal life he led before he went in there.

This was perhaps one of the most striking things about his talk, as in the same session, he spoke about growing up and playing as a child in Slovakia to struggling with starvation and labour at the camp, where seeing dead bodies was a regular occurrence.

Full report on this week's print and digital edition

blog comments powered by Disqus