“In a way it connects us to the Holocaust in a very sobering way,” explains Noel Russell, a former Irish News journalist and news editor, of his new book The Saved and the Spurned.
In August 1938 a two-paragraph news item appeared in the only Jewish newspaper the Nazis allowed to operate in Vienna.
It said that the Northern Ireland government had supported an Austrian Jew who was employing Viennese refugees in an Ulster factory and was prepared to consider applications from employers and skilled workers who could train local people.
Immediately hundreds of letters from Jewish people in Vienna started to arrive at the Ministry of Commerce headquarters in Belfast.
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Noel’s book is the first comprehensive account of how the Northern Ireland government responded to these appeals for help.
“The Irish News started it for me,” he explains. An item in the late Éamon Phoenix’s On This Day column sparked his interest.
“In March 2008/2009 it mentioned that a lot of Jewish people had applied to come to Northern Ireland and a lot of them had been refused,” says Noel.
The book reveals that more than 600 persecuted Jews, mainly from Vienna, were denied entry to Northern Ireland.
“Underneath the column, Éamon Phoenix commented that it had to be assumed that some of those people had been killed in the Holocaust and that the policies of the Irish and UK government were very strict and not very generous.
“He went on to describe how many Jewish people had applied to come to Northern Ireland from every conceivable profession in these letters which were available in the public records office.”
Given his keen interest in history, having produced multiple historical documentaries for the likes of BBC NI, RTE and TG4, it was inevitable that this Irish News segment would capture Noel’s attention.
“I began to do some research; I went to the public record office and I discovered that there were about 300 files full of these letters from Jews in Vienna which totalled to around 730 names.”
Through studying these letters Noel learned about the lives of the of these applicants and their desperate efforts to get themselves and their families out of Nazi occupied Europe.
To have them share their stories so generously - I felt very lucky. Many of them made the point that it’s very important for them to tell their stories and that people listen and read them
— Noel Russell
“At this time the Jews of Vienna are experiencing mass terror,” he says.
“And of the 730 names in the letters 125 are murdered in the Holocaust and at best only 100 of them got into NI.
“One of the stories I tell in the book is about a young woman in Derry called Lily Weinstein. Her fiancée was in Vienna; he was a guy called Willy Ehrenstein.
“He was amongst a group of about 15 or 16 people who applied to come and join relatives and friends who were already in Derry – most of them got in but I found out that he didn’t.”
Once Noel had the names of all people who had sent letters and applied to come to NI, he was able to check who had survived the war through a database in Vienna called the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance.
“I was able to cross reference the names from the letters with the names on this database to find out which of these people had been murdered in the Holocaust and it turned out Willy Ehrenstein was one of them.
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“He never got to Derry to meet his fiancée. He was arrested and initially sent to Theresienstadt which was used as a holding centre for Jews all across western Europe.
“He went on to survive for almost two years in the death camp system and then in 1944 he was sent to this place in Czechoslovakia called Leitmeritz which the Germans had converted into a tank engine factory.
“It was known as the death factory because so many slave labourers died there – we’re talking maybe 900 a month. Willy survived up until April 1945, three weeks before the end of the war.”
The book also details the life and work of Alfred Neumann. Originally from Austria, Neumann was instrumental in helping get Jewish workers out of Vienna to Northern Ireland. Noel describes him as “Ulster’s Oskar Schindler on a small scale”.
“He had a business as an export agent and he had established links with Northern Ireland because small numbers of Jewish refugees had come to Derry and Belfast in 1930,” says Noel.
“So he became a member of an advisory committee for the Ministry of Commerce in Northern Ireland and he helped advise them on who should get in.
“He set up a factory in Newtownards which made handicrafts and things like that and he brought over six trainees from Vienna.
“And under his own steam, by recommending people, he got up to 70 people in despite the strict rules and criteria.”
However, although Neumann had established himself as a ‘real Ulsterman’ and regardless of his efforts to help the Jews in Vienna in 1939, he was sacked over disagreements with staff and interned a few months later.
“You could call him a rough diamond and he might have rubbed people up the wrong way,” Noel explains.
“He was interned as an enemy alien – which was astonishing given how much work he’d been doing to bring Jews out of Vienna.”
Neumann’s situation worsened in 1940 when Germany invaded multiple countries in Western Europe including France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands putting pressure on and sparking fear within the British government.
“Alfred Neumann is put on a ship called the Arandora Star with 1,200 so-called enemy aliens to sail across the Atlantic to Canada,” Noel recounts.
“But this is during the Battle of the Atlantic so the ocean is crawling with U-boats sinking ships left right and centre.
“On the ship’s second day out in July 1940 there’s a U-boat heading back towards Germany - it’s already sunk eight ships with 13 torpedoes.
“The guy running the ship is called Gunther Prien and he had one torpedo left – he spots the Arandora Star, he follows it, and he says ‘that’s an enemy ship’ and he thinks he can sink it.
“So he fires his last torpedo and hits the ship and within half an hour it sinks - 800 of the 1,200 detainees are drowned including Alfred Neumann - which wasn’t the ending I had hoped for.”
Under his own steam, by recommending people, Alfred Neumann got up to 70 Jews into Northern Ireland despite the strict rules and criteria
— Noel Russell
However, in addition to his archival research, Noel had the opportunity to interview Holocaust survivors and their descendants which he describes as “one of the great experiences of writing the book”.
“To have them share their stories so generously - I felt very lucky. Many of them made the point that it’s very important for them to tell their stories and that people listen and read them.
“Walter Kammerling, one of people I spoke to said, ‘It’s easy to believe the beliefs of the mob but it’s important to make your own mind.’ Which couldn’t be more true.”
Reflecting on the process which has spanned 14 years, Noel admits it has had a profound impact on him.
“You read the letters and you get a glimpse into the lives of these people – a lot of them are simply applications but some of them are much more personal,” he says.
“They’re writing from the heart and trying to do anything to get their families out.
“So to read them was both a moving and difficult experience because as a researcher you want to find out what happened to them but in a way you have formed a relationship with these people.
“You know who these names are, all about their families and then you find out they’ve been murdered by the Nazis and it’s incredibly hard to accept - it’s an ambivalent feeling.”
Noel hopes the book will help to encourage people to adopt a more empathetic approach towards those who have also had to leave their homes due to conflict.
“Not only does it tell the story of what happened in Vienna and in Belfast but I think it alerts people to the vulnerability of individuals who find themselves in a refugee situation,” he says.
“It’s always important to be reminded that these people are in dire straits and we need to see them has human beings and not just label them as illegal immigrants or as a problem.”
