Resources

Yisrael Abelesz was just 14 years old when he was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most infamous of all Nazi camps. Whilst there he escaped selection for the gas chambers and survived typhoid and a death march.

Dorit Oliver-Wolff BEM was just five years old when war came to her home country of Yugoslavia. She spent the following years moving from one hiding place to another, and narrowly escaped imprisonment on a number of occasions. After recovering from her experiences during the Holocaust she moved to Germany and became a star.

Sabina had a happy childhood in Bosnia until the Bosnian War forced her family to flee the county. The family went at first to Slovenia, before they were finally resettled in the UK. Now living in Scotland, Sabina is a social justice campaigner focused on the rights of refugees and people with lived experience of homelessness. She is the Vice Chair of Beyond Srebrenica, a charity dedicated to raising awareness of the Bosnian genocide and promoting tolerance in Scotland.

Marianne Grant was a young artist from Prague. Having survived Theresienstadt, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the final days of Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, using her skills as an artist to survive, she came to Glasgow where she raised her family.

Tomi Komoly, born in Budapest in 1936, survived the Holocaust in hiding with his Mother. Post-war, he struggled under Communist rule, leading Tomi to escape to Austria in 1956. He completed his education, reunited with his mother, and was awarded a British Empire Medal in 2020 for his contributions to Holocaust education.

Alfred Garwood was born in a Nazi ghetto, imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, and later put on a train destined for Terezin Concentration Camp, when he and his family were liberated by the Red Army. Alfred spent the rest of his childhood in Britain and grew up in the centre of a community of Holocaust survivors. He has since written extensively on the psychological implications of trauma relating to genocide whilst also working as a General Practitioner.

Ellen remembers a happy childhood living in what was then East Prussia. Witnessing the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht) in 1938 marked a turning point in her life. Soon after, she escaped to England on the Kindertransport, where she initially moved around, living with several different families, and had to provide domestic help.

Antoinette Mutabazi is a child survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. She endured a harrowing 90-day period, hiding from the killers who murdered her mother, two young brothers, and dozens of other relatives.

Henry Wuga MBE came to Glasgow on the Kindertransport, was evacuated, then interned. He settled and married in Glasgow to a fellow Kindertransportee, gave back to the community and educated thousands on the Holocaust.

Yvonne Bernstein was one of thousands of Jewish children hidden across Europe during the Holocaust. Her identity disguised, she was able to survive, avoiding the fate of 1.5 million Jewish children who were murdered by the Nazis.