On the back of the letter was a drawing of Walter and a girl, both wearing shorts, picking oranges in an orchard. ‘Making the desert bloom is hard work,’ he writes, ‘but at least we can hold our heads up and no longer live in fear of the Nazis.’ He thinks the whole family is safely in Ireland, and says we’ll all meet after the war ends.
Papa is happy that Walter is alive and well. I am too, but I wish I could hug my big brother again, and we could all be together like before.
Longford, Ireland: October 1941
I could not write the bad news last week, but here it is now. Because Papa could not get visas for Mutti and Ella – though he explained to the authorities that we would support ourselves – they are trapped by the war in Warsaw with the rest of Papa’s family.
Papa wrote to the Red Cross, which helps families divided by the war to keep in touch. We had no reply until last week. The envelope was stamped by the International Red Cross, and on it was printed: HERR STERN, LANG FORD, IRLAND.
‘Clever postman, to find us,’ whispered Papa as he opened it with shaking hands. Inside was a letter in elegant Polish script, from his friend Casimir Pavlak who’d helped Mutti, Ella and me when we arrived from Berlin. As young men, Papa told us, they used to go fishing together in the river Vistula.
Papa frowned with concentration as he translated.
Dear friend Adam, I hope you and your daughter are settled in Irland. We are lucky we can send this special letter through the International Red Cross, where my daughter works. Since the war started, post is difficult, even to neutral countries.
Last year the Germans decreed all Jewish residents of Warsaw must move into the ghetto, sealed off by a wall over ten feet high, with barbed wire, guarded with dogs. We brought food for your dear wife, Janina, and for Ella, but we were turned back. There is fear and misery in the whole city, but it is worse in the ghetto. There are six or seven people to each room, and little food. There are rumours that trainloads of Jews from there are being taken to a concentration camp.
A few days ago we heard a tap at the door, and found Ella, thin and in rags. Though she is ten, you would take her for much younger. Despite the dangers, children slip in and out of the ghetto to smuggle in food, and also arms and ammunition, from Polish partisans. Ella says young people in the ghetto are determined to rise up and fight the Nazis, though I’m afraid they haven’t much chance.
Ella brought a note from her mother, asking us to hide her until you could get her to Irland. Janina is not well. She writes: ‘My husband’s family are all here – the grandparents and the children suffer most. I will try to survive, though death is all around us. I hope Ella will have a better chance with you.’
Janina sent her deep love to you and Renata, and Walter, who she hopes is safe in Palestine. Ella told us Mutti will try to come for her one day, but she knows her dear Papa will find his little girl, even if it’s not till the war is over.
Dear comrade, be sure we will care for Ella like our own child, and with God’s help we will try to protect her from the Nazis. We pray Janina and the others too will survive this and your family can be reunited.
Your loving friends, Casimir and Berta.
PS Ella was not sure of your address and we hope you receive this.
Longford, December 1941
I haven’t written my diary for a while. My heart has been heavy. Nothing is certain – the Pavlaks’ letter gave us hope for Ella but fear for Mutti and for Papa’s family.
Papa says we must be thankful that we ourselves, Walter and hopefully Ella have escaped the Nazis. ‘Mutti is strong,’ he told me gently, ‘and there can be miracles. We must keep going, always with hope.’ He’s right, but inside I’m always fearful about my mother and my poor little sister.
Then a letter came from Hetty inviting us to visit them on the last day of Hanukkah. She said we will light the eight candles, and see all the family and our friends and neighbours in Martin Street. But she said they fear for Zaida’s family.
The next day, Dr Lowy hurried in, waving a newspaper with huge headlines: ‘PEARL HARBOUR BOMBED BY JAPAN: US AT WAR WITH JAPAN AND NAZI GERMANY.’
The landlady came upstairs. ‘What does it mean?’ she asked us. ‘Why is everyone so excited?’
‘It means, thankfully,’ said Dr Lowy, ‘that with America’s help – and Russia’s – Britain and the Allies will win the war and the Nazis will be destroyed. But it may take years.’
This news filled us all with hope. First I got one of Zaida’s hankies and, mopping my tears, I started to look through the oddments of material in my box for something to make myself a new dress. And then I wrote to Hetty to tell them our family news, and say that on Hanukkah, in Dublin, we will all share our joy, and our sadness, together.
HISTORICAL NOTE
Jewish Immigration to Ireland
The first Jews arrived from Spain and Portugal in the 1500s. The earliest synagogue was opened in Crane Lane, Dublin, in 1660, and a Jewish cemetery in Fairview, dating from the early 1700s, can still be visited.
However, most of the present community are descended from Eastern European Jews who arrived in Ireland in the late 1800s and early 1900s, fleeing persecution and economic hardship.
The community spread to Irish towns such as Cork, Waterford and Drogheda, reaching a high point of 3500 in the mid-1940s. After that the number diminished. The 2006 census showed around 1200 Jews in Dublin, with a handful in Cork. The community continues to decline gradually, with people moving to the UK, Israel, the US and Australia.
Before the Second World War, the Irish government permitted a few European Jews to set up factories if they gave local employment, such as Hirsch Ribbons in the story (another was a hat factory, Les Modes Modernes, in Galway).
But, generally, Jewish refugees applying for visas to Ireland found no welcome. In 1995 Taoiseach John Bruton apologised to the community for Ireland’s refusal to allow in Jewish refugees trying desperately to escape the Nazi terror in Europe.
Martin Street and Portobello
The Artisans Dwellings project was set up in 1876 to alleviate the unsanitary housing conditions of the Dublin working class, living in inner-city tenements. The project included Martin Street and Kingsland Parade in Portobello.
Later, Jewish immigrants settled in the Portobello area, the network of narrow streets between the South Circular Road and the Grand Canal. Clanbrassil Street was the colourful, bustling hub of Jewish Dublin, its kosher shops attracting both Jewish and other customers, especially on Sunday mornings.
In Jewish Dublin, Portraits of Life by the Liffey distinguished musician Colman Pearce describes the area:
My parents, born in 1913 and 1914 respectively, were both raised in that area off the South Circular Road affectionately known as ‘Little Jerusalem’ …
My mother often said, ‘the best Christians among our neighbours are Jews!’ This was meant as a sincere compliment, as she found much kindness and empathy with our Jewish neighbours. I was regularly asked by the orthodox Jewish families to perform minor tasks on the Sabbath – turning lights or gas on or off etc. We delighted to do this, as the rewards were always interesting (money!) or tasty (sweets, home-made fudge or – our favourite – matza crackers). We always considered ourselves fortunate to perform these little tasks in homes that were basically the same as our own, but also, mysteriously, magically and intriguingly different – and a little exotic.
The Main Characters
In researching this book, the author conducted numerous detailed interviews with current and former residents of ‘Little Jerusalem’, both Jewish and Christian. Many of the characters – including some of the Golden and the Byrne families – and events in the story are partly based on their recollections and partly fictional. (Names and some historical dates have been altered for the purpose of the story.)
Those based on fact include:
Zaida (Abel Golden), who left his shtetl (village) in the Russian empire, aged about seventeen. Like many r
efugees, he never knew his actual birthday.
As described in the story, he had only his father’s coat, very little money and no identity papers. Over two years he walked and hitched across Europe, and, with the help of local Jews, worked at tailoring and farming along the way to feed himself.
Finally, in 1920-21, he reached Leeds in the north of England, meeting, for the first time, his eldest sister Mary (originally Mariashe), who had emigrated from home before he was born.
Abel and his wife, a Polish immigrant herself, later settled in Dublin and had two children, seven grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren. Zaida and Bobba (Yiddish for Granny and Grandad) both died at a great age, but sadly, after the Germans invaded Poland, and later Russia and Lithuania, all the family members left behind were murdered in the Holocaust.
Zaida is still remembered by his family for his gentle jokes, his religious faith, and his lack of bitterness, despite poverty and persecution in his old home, then hardship as a new immigrant in a strange land. Living in Dublin, Zaida worked as a tailor, and made friends from all faiths, often meeting them in Bewley’s Oriental Café in Grafton Street for tea and a chat.
Renata
Renata Stern is loosely based on a former German-Jewish refugee, who recounted her story to this author and others, in newspaper interviews and in Mary Rose Doorley’s book, Hidden Memories.
Some of her family members are partly fictional, but the extraordinary circumstances of Renata’s escape to Ireland with her father’s help, and the humanity – in the end – of certain Irish individuals who allowed her to stay in the country, are based on her own account, and historically accurate.
She later married a British Jewish immigrant, had two sons, and lived in Dublin until her death a few years ago.
Uncle Matt and Granny
These characters grew from interviewees’ recollections, memoirs and oral histories.
Matt: all the details of Uncle Matt – his clay pipe, his beloved birds and his forthright political attitudes and support of the trade union movement – are accurate.
Granny: based on an interview by the author with a Dublin woman who described the hardships of her Granny’s childhood, and how her gentle, loving manner disguised her inner strength and resilience. Despite her troubles and her losses, she battled on, sustained by her spirit and her faith.
Stephen Byrne
He is also drawn from interviews, recollections and oral histories. There were certainly some who resented the ‘foreigners’ in their midst, and whose attitudes were similar to Stephen Byrne’s. An incident resembling that of the returned cake is described in Ena May’s book, A Close Shave with the Devil: Stories of Dublin (although in the original the gift is a hand-knitted baby dress).
In 1930s and 1940s Ireland, several anti-Semitic groups and organisations flourished, such as Maria Duce, the Blueshirts and also Sinn Féin – anti-Semitic articles appeared frequently in their newspaper, An Phoblacht, often written by Arthur Griffith.
However, it seems that in ‘Little Jerusalem’, with a few exceptions, relationships with neighbours across the religious divide were cordial, as described in Colman Pearce’s memoir, and often led to warm and long-lasting friendships.
Jewish Religion and Festivals
Two Jewish festivals are referred to in the book: Passover occurs in spring, usually close to Easter, and Hanukkah in winter.
Passover
This commemorates the rescue of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, and their eventual settlement in the ‘Promised Land’. The Seder is the traditional Passover meal at which wine is drunk and symbolic foods eaten, including matza (unleavened bread), reminding celebrants that their bread did not rise due to the haste with which, with divine intervention, they fled Egypt. (The Last Supper is thought to have been this Passover meal.) The story of the Exodus is re-told every Passover to educate the young, and remind all present of Jewish redemption and re-birth as a free people.
Hanukkah
This celebrates the miracle by which, as Hetty learns in her Hebrew class, the special holy oil used in the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, only sufficient for one day, actually lasted for eight days. During the eight-day festival, a special Hanukkah Menorah is lit. It has eight branches in a row, each topped by a candle-holder, and a holder for a special candle to light the others. It should be placed at a front window for all to see.
Jewish children were often given ‘Hanukkah geld’ (money), similar to First Communion money, or Hannukah gifts.
Sabbath
The weekly day of rest, from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday, is based on the Biblical commandment: ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.’ This concept of a weekly day of rest, devotion and reflection – for all Jews, their servants and followers, even their work animals – was the origin of the modern weekend.
Orthodox Jews are required to abstain from work of all kind – even, as in the story, lighting a fire or switching on a lamp, and to join the congregation in prayer in the synagogue.
Barmitzvah
Coming up to the age of thirteen, a Jewish boy studies the rules and history of his religion. In the synagogue, usually on the Sabbath, he recites part of the weekly ‘portion of the holy law’ (the Torah) inscribed on a parchment scroll, and he undertakes the responsibilities of a Jewish man.
In more recent times, twelve-year-old orthodox girls also follow a course of study, culminating in a group ceremony known as Bat Chayil. However, in Progressive congregations, of which there is one in Dublin, boys have a Barmitzvah and girls a Bat Mitzvah, for which they both study and perform the reading in the synagogue.
There is also – as seen in the story – rejoicing, with gifts, and parties for families and friends.
The Holocaust, or ‘Shoah’
(Shoah is a biblical word meaning ‘calamity’)
Even before the war started, the planned destruction of the Jewish people by the German Nazi party began. In neutral Ireland, with press and radio censorship, very little was published about the Holocaust.
In the world press and on the BBC, there was some information about Nazi concentration and slave labour camps in Germany, and, later, those in Poland and in Nazi-occupied Europe.
But information was also spread by word of mouth and other means. From 1933 when the Nazi party took power, German newspapers and radio made clear that the Nazi policy was the destruction of all Jews. The camps of Buchenwald, Dachau and Sachsenhausen were set up in Germany well before the war began. ‘Kristallnacht’, the Night of Broken Glass, in November 1938, alerted Jews and others to the level of Nazi hatred and violence towards the Jews.
In September 1939 a British Government White Paper gave horrific details of the treatment of Jewish prisoners in Dachau.
When the camps were liberated by British, Russian, American and other Allied soldiers, the full horror of the deaths of millions in gas chambers, or from disease and starvation, or in mass shootings, was finally revealed.
Of those in the story, sadly, people like Mutti and all Renata’s relations in the Warsaw ghetto would have been deported to their deaths.
There were many brave people, like the Pavlaks in the story, who, at great risk to themselves, kept children like Ella hidden until the end of the war.
German ‘special’ forces, the Einsatzgruppen who followed in the wake of the German army as it advanced first into Poland, and later Russia and Lithuania, would have rounded up and killed Zaida’s family along with thousands of Jews living in the towns and shtetls of Eastern Europe.
It took a long time after the end of the Second World War in Europe in May 1945 for the relatives of victims of the Nazis to find out, with the help of the International Red Cross, what had happened to their loved ones in Europe. Some never did.
In all, six million Jews, including a million and a half children, were killed in the Shoah.
Wartime Bombings in Neutral Ireland
There were, of course, thousands killed in Nazi bombing raid
s on Britain and elsewhere. The Belfast Blitz on Easter Tuesday 1941 wrought huge destruction, killing almost 900 people and injuring another 1500 in a single night.
And, despite its neutrality, there were several bombing incidents in the South of Ireland, including attacks on Irish ships and on the mail boat, The Cambria.
In August 1940 three girls were killed by German bombs in County Wexford. In January 1941 bombs fell on Dublin, first on Terenure, then on the Dolphin’s Barn area, as described in the book, destroying at least three houses, injuring twenty people and damaging the synagogue. However, the worst incident occurred on the night of 31 May 1941 when bombs were dropped first on the Phoenix Park (causing mayhem at the zoo and shattering all the windows of Áras an Uachtaráin), and also at Ballybough. Later that night four high-explosive bombs did major damage in the North Strand area, leaving 32 dead and over 80 injured.
The Warsaw Ghetto
After the German occupation of Poland in September 1939, which triggered the Second World War, Warsaw, Poland’s capital, contained the largest ghetto in Europe; from November 1941 more than 400,000 Jews were imprisoned within its walls in unbelievable conditions of overcrowding, hunger and disease.
Although the ghetto was sealed, a few children, like Ella in the story, slipped in and out despite the risks, to smuggle in food, and later, arms.
By 1942, thousands of Jewish men, women and children had been deported by the Nazis from the ghetto, packed in cattle trucks, to Treblinka death camp. Many of those remaining were determined to resist their German oppressors. The Jewish Fighting Organization, which included both men and women, issued a call: ‘All are ready to die as human beings.’ Secretly they fortified hideouts and bunkers, obtaining some rifles and ammunition from Polish resistance leaders outside.
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