Zoltan Zinn-Collis (M / Slovakia, 1940), Holocaust survivor
Zoltan Zinn-Collis (M / Slovakia, 1940-2012), Holocaust survivor.
Edith Zinn-Collis (F / Slovakia, 1937), Holocaust survivor
- One of the Bergen-Belsen children brought to Ireland by dr. Bob Collis.
- KEYWORDS : <Ravensbruck> <Bergen-Belsen> <Liberation of Bergen-Belsen> -- <Ireland>
- MEMOIRS : Final Witness (2006)
Biography
Zinn-Collis was the son of a Slovak labourer of Jewish descent and a Hungarian Protestant woman. Collis had two sisters and one brother, the youngest sister being killed during the Holocaust at the age of 18 months. Zoltan's brother Aladar developed TB and died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. On April 15, 1945, Zoltan's mother died in Belsen, the same day the Red Cross arrived. His father, Adolf Zinn, was thought to have died in Ravensbruck in 1944. His older sister, Edith, also survived the Holocaust.
The two orphan children were adopted by the Irish doctor, Bob Collis, who met them at Bergen-Belsen after liberation.
Book : Final Witness (2006)
- Final Witness: My Journey from the Holocaust to Ireland (Dunshaughlin: Maverick House, 2006).
"At the age of five, Zoltan Zinn-Collis was torn from his home in Slovakia and cast into the deepest horrors of a Nazi concentration camp. In Bergen-Belsen concentration camp he survived the inhuman brutality of the Ss guards, the ravages of near starvation, disease, and squalor. All but one of his family died there, his mother losing her life on the very day the British finally marched into the camp. Discovered by a Red Cross nurse who described him as 'an enchanting scrap of humanity', Zoltan was brought to Ireland and adopted by one of the liberators, Dr Bob Collis, who raised him as his own son on Ireland's east coast. Now aged 65, Zoltan is ready to speak. His story is one of deepest pain and greatest joy. Zoltan tells how he lost one family and found another; of how, escaping from the ruins of a broken Europe, he was able to build himself a life – a life he may never have had.--Publisher description.
Irish Children of the Holocaust
Zoltan Zinn-Collis thinks he was born on 1 August 1940, although he is not certain of the date, in Kežmarok, Czechoslovakia. During the Nazis’ last purge of the Slovak Jews, Zoltan’s mother, a Hungarian Protestant, was given the chance to renounce her marriage to her Jewish husband. She refused and the whole family was rounded up and deported.
They were forced onto cattle trucks – Zoltan’s father in one compartment with the other men, the rest of the family in another – and transported to the concentration camp at Ravensbrück, Germany. On arrival, Zoltan’s father was sent to his death. The rest of the family was taken further west to Bergen-Belsen. Zoltan’s younger sister did not survive the journey.
When the British army liberated Bergen-Belsen in April 1945, Zoltan had been there for several months. The camp’s conditions by that time were extremely squalid; starvation and disease were rife. Zoltan had contracted tuberculosis of the spine. His mother, ill with typhoid, lost her life on the very day the British army entered the camp. Shortly after the liberation, Zoltan’s older brother Aladar also succumbed to the disease.
In the makeshift hospital constructed by the British army, Zoltan and his sister, Edit, began to regain their health. They became the favourites of an Irish Red Cross doctor, Bob Collis, who promised to take them home with him to Ireland. After a year’s recuperation in Sweden, Zoltan and Edit, along with four other orphaned children – Suszi and Tibor Molnar, Evelyn Schwartz, and Franz Berlin – arrived with Bob Collis in Dublin. The children spent some more time in convalescence at Fairy Hill Hospital, Howth, north of Dublin. The tuberculosis, however, caused severe damage to Zoltan’s spine and he never fully recovered.
Collis incorporated Zoltan and Edit into his own family and the Zinn children added the suffix “Collis” to their name. Living with the Collises, their time was divided between Bob’s house in Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, and a country home in the Wicklow Mountains. Zoltan stayed in Ireland and spent his professional life working as a chef. He is married to Joan and lives in Athy, Co Kildare. They have four grown-up daughters, three grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Edit lives in Co Wicklow. Zoltan’s family perished in the Holocaust. He is acutely aware of not having any relatives representing the family at occasions such as weddings, anniversaries, and other family events.
Obituary : Independent (12 December 2012)
- Holocaust survivor who built life in Ireland dies aged 72, by Allison Bray.
ONE of Ireland's last Holocaust survivors has died suddenly at the age of 72.
Zoltan Zinn-Collis passed away at his home in Athy, Co Kildare, on Monday.
He was born in Slovakia in 1940 to a Jewish father and interned as a child at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp along with his mother and his two sisters and a brother, all of whom died there.
His older sister Edit survived the Nazi extermination along with Zoltan when the Red Cross rescued them in April 15, 1945.
His father is believed to have died at the Ravensbruck concentration camp in 1944.
Dublin paediatrician and rugby international Bob Collis, who was among the Red Cross contingent, adopted Zoltan and Edit and raised them in Ireland.
In his 2006 autobiography, 'Final Witness: My Journey from the Holocaust to Ireland' Mr Zinn-Collis recounted how when Dr Collis gathered him in his arms he said: "My father is dead. You are now my father.
"And in that moment, a bond was created between him and me that was to last some 30 years until his death," he wrote.
Mr Zinn-Collis went on to become a hotel manager and toured the country giving lectures on the Holocaust to schools.
He was plagued with ill-health after losing a lung to TB. But he never let it affect his happy life with his wife Joan and daughters Siobhan, Caroline, Nicola and Emma.
"As a family we were just so grateful for all the time we had with him," Emma said. "He left behind a great legacy, but to us, he was just 'Daddy'."
Education Minister Ruari Quinn said: "I knew him well. He did fantastic work travelling to schools around the country sharing his experiences."
He was being waked at his home last night ahead of today's funeral at 11am at St Michael's Church of Ireland in Athy.