Doris’ story

Dorli Klepperova was born on 16 June 1932 in Chomotow, a German speaking town in the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia. Her father, Siegfried, was a marketing manager and the family enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle. In 1938, Czechoslovakia was ceded to Germany and Dorli’s family realised the urgency of leaving their homeland. Siegfried’s attention was caught by an Irish trade mission to Czechoslovakia, seeking to attract European industry to the west of Ireland. It was headed by Senator J.E. McElinn and included Marcus Witztum and Serge Phillipson, who negotiated the setting up of the hat factory with Hugo Reiniger & Co., hat manufacturer of Chomotow. 

Siegfried applied for a work permit and, although he had no actual skills in the making of hats, he was granted a visa. Dorli and her parents, Siegfried and Gretel (Margaret), made the long journey by train across Europe and to Ireland by boat in the summer of 1939, ending up in Castlebar when the factory opened. 

In Ireland, ‘Dorli’ became ‘Doris’. The Kleppers found life in the west of Ireland very different from their previous existence. The family knew little English, but for Doris it was necessary to learn a third language, too, since all her primary schooling was conducted through Irish. 

At the age of 12, Doris was sent to boarding school in Dublin, and her parents moved there in 1952. Doris qualified as a physiotherapist in 1955. She married Jack Segal in 1958 and they had three children: Henry, Michelle and Robert. 

Not all of Doris’s family was lucky enough to escape the Nazis. Fred’s two brothers perished in concentration camps despite desperate efforts to get them out of Czechoslovakia. Gretel’s parents, Max and Klara Heller, were sent to Theresienstadt and from there deported to Auschwitz, where they perished. Throughout their lives, Siegfried and Gretel were burdened by the knowledge of the fates of so many loved ones in the Holocaust. 

‘I was very fond of my grandparents and we were very close. It was very hard saying goodbye to them – even though I did not realise at the time that we would never see each other again.’

Doris lived in Terenure before she passed away in January 2018.