Tibor & Suszi Molnar (MF / Hungary, 1939, 1942), Holocaust survivors
Tibor Molnar / Terry Samuel (M / Hungary, 1939-2007), Holocaust survivor.
Suszi Molnar / Suzi Diamond (F / Hungary, 1942), Holocaust survivor.
- Two of the Bergen-Belsen children brought to Ireland by dr. Bob Collis.
- KEYWORDS : <Ravensbrück> <Bergen-Belsen> <Liberation of Bergen-Belsen>
Biography
Tibor (1939) and Suszi (1943) Molnar were born in Debrecin, Hungary. They were liberated at Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945. After recovering in Sweden, they was among the five orphans brought to Ireland in 1947 by dr. Bob Collis and given into adoption. Tibor and Suszi (now Terry and Suzi) were adopted by Elsie and Willie Samuels in Dublin.
Sources
- USHMM Database (yes)
Irish Children of the Holocaust (Terry Samuels)
Terry Samuels Diamond (Tibor Molnar) was born in Debrecin, near Budapest, in Hungary. In April 1945, he was found with her sister, Suzi (Suszi), in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by the British liberators. He was five years old and his sister was two.
Terry’s father had been taken away by the Nazis. Terry, his mother and his sister were rounded up and forced into cattle trucks. They were sent first to Ravensbrück, a concentration camp for women and children, and then on to Bergen-Belsen. During the journey the three huddled together, their mother attempting to shield them from the overcrowding and squalor. Eventually their mother became so weak that she was moved to another hut; she did not return, and died of typhoid shortly after the arrival of the British.
When the camp was liberated, the army established a makeshift hospital for the thousands of ailing survivors. An Irish volunteer paediatrician, Bob Collis, working with the Red Cross, befriended some of the orphaned children, and eventually brought them home to Ireland.
Suzi and Terry recovered their physical health and Bob Collis arranged for them to be adopted by an Orthodox Jewish couple, Elsie and Willie Samuels, in Dublin.
Terry passed away in London in January 2007.
Irish Children of the Holocaust (Suzi Diamont)
Suzi Diamond (Suszi Molnar) was born in Debrecin, near Budapest, in Hungary. In April 1945, she was found with her brother, Tibor (Terry), in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by the British liberators. She was two years old and her brother was five.
Suzi’s father had been taken away by the Nazis. Suzi, her mother and her brother were rounded up and forced into cattle trucks. They were sent first to Ravensbrück, a concentration camp for women and children, and then on to Bergen-Belsen. During the journey the three huddled together, their mother attempting to shield them from the overcrowding and squalor. On arrival at Bergen-Belsen, the two-year-old was washed down with a fire hose.
Suzi remembers her mother giving her and Terry almost all of her own rations. Eventually her mother became so weak that she was moved to another hut; she did not return, and died of typhoid shortly after the arrival of the British.
When the camp was liberated, Suzi herself was ill with typhus. The army established a makeshift hospital for the thousands of ailing survivors. An Irish volunteer paediatrician, Bob Collis, working with the Red Cross, befriended some of the orphaned children, and eventually brought them home to Ireland.
Suzi and Terry recovered their physical health and Bob Collis arranged for them to be adopted by an Orthodox Jewish couple, Elsie and Willie Samuels, in Dublin.
Like many Holocaust survivors, for Suzi the emotional damage has outlasted the physical. According to the prevailing attitude at the time of her youth, traumatic experiences were suppressed in the hope that they would be forgotten. Suzi buried her concentration-camp experience. However, she still lives with a fear of water, an utter abhorrence of dirt and a mistrust of all that is unfamiliar. Also, like many other survivors, she was unable to speak about Bergen-Belsen until fifty years after leaving it behind.
Suzi is married to Alec Diamond and she has spent her life in Dublin. They have two grown-up children, Bernard and Lynette. Terry passed away in London in January 2007.
"I remember the long, oblongshaped carriage. My mother went over to one of the corners; there were no seats, only wooden floors, and the three of us huddled together."
Susan Diamond's Testimony hetireland.org (January 2016)
I was born Suzi Molnar in Hungary, in 1942. We were a small family comprising my mother Gisela, my father Sandor, my brother Terry, and myself.
In 1944 Adolf Eichmann oversaw the round-up and deportation of more than 430,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where most of them perished in the gas chambers. During those months, the Gestapo came for my mother, brother and me.
We were forced on to one of the last transports to leave Hungary in September 1944. We were deported first to Ravensbrück and then to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where we remained until liberation in 1945. My mother died of TB soon after the British arrived. Bob Collis brought us back with him to Ireland, and eventually arranged for Terry and me to be adopted by a Jewish couple in Dublin, Elsie and Willie Samuels. Terry and I were very young children and had been told that we were the only two members of our family to have survived the Holocaust. In time, we both married and reared our own children. My brother passed away in 2007 – which makes me deeply aware of how fast the clock is ticking for all of us who are Holocaust survivors.
But last year my story changed...
In Spring 2015, Holocaust Education Trust Ireland was contacted by someone in Hungary called Sandor Molnar, who thought he might be related to me. Over the course of emails and exchanges of photographs and documents, it transpires that he is indeed a relation – he is my first cousin! He is named after my father and he has filled in a few details about my family, which I had not previously known.
I have learned that my father was one of four brothers who lived in the small town of Karcag about 100 miles from Budapest, where they ran a timber business. My new cousin, who was born after the war, is the son of the youngest brother, Andor, who survived the Holocaust along with another brother, Lazlo. My father and the fourth brother, Béla, perished in a Russian labour camp in 1943.
Last June I visited Karcag and saw my grandfather’s house, the Jewish cemetery where my grandparents are buried, and the synagogue where all my family prayed. 778 Jews lived in Karcag before the war; 461 of them were murdered in the Holocaust. There is a memorial scroll on the synagogue wall recording the Jews from Karcag who perished in the Holocaust. My family is listed on it, but now the scroll has to be corrected because my brother and I survived! I am gradually being introduced to new first cousins and their children living in Hungary and in the United States. This is all very new information for me to absorb as a new and emotional chapter in my personal story is beginning to unfold...