Zoltan Zinn-Collis Lecture

Last Tuesday we had our first lecture of the year. The guest lecturer this week was Zoltan Zinn-Collis, a Holocaust survivor. At the beginning of the war, Collis was a young boy living in Slovakia with his mother, father and siblings. His mother was a Protestant and his father was Jewish. One day an S.S. officer arrived at the family home and asked Collis' mother to sign an anollment as her husband was Jewish, she refused. Collis' father thought it would be best to hide out for a few days in the woods, after a few days he returned home to replenish his supplies. He was spotted and was reported to the S.S. A few days later, the S.S. officer returned and once again asked Collis' mother to sign an anollment, she refused. The family were told that they had fifteen minutes to pack their bags. The family were brought to the local church and gradually more and more local people began to arrive. In the morning they were transported to the train station where they boarded cattle wagons. While on the train, many people died, including Collis' baby sister, her body was thrown over a wall by an S.S. officer. When they arrived at the camp the group was separated into those that could work and those that were to be exterminated, the men were also separated from the women and children. Conditions in the camp were tough and many died. After a few months Collis was moved to Bergen-Belsen with his mother, sister and brother. His father is suspected to have died at Ravensbruck Camp in 1944. Residents of the camp lived in barracks', bunk beds were stacked three high, one for each family. On the 15th of April 1945, Collis' mother died in Bergen-Belsen, the very same day that the camp was liberated by the Red Cross. Zoltan was adopted along with his sister by Bob Collis, the leader of the Irish Red Cross.+