Ireland did not evade the Holocaust.

The Holocaust was a defining event in modern European history. As a small country at the edge of Europe, it can be easy to think Ireland was untouched by the impact of the Holocaust. However, the tragic events on continental Europe impacted Ireland and the lives of countless Irish people.

Some Irish people resisted the Nazi regime while working in Europe and saved countless lives as aid workers, religious figures and ordinary citizens. Some survivors made their home’s in Ireland and made indelible contributions to Irish life. Lives shaped, but not determined, by the Holocaust.

Ireland’s wartime neutrality and peripheral position on the continent did not save Irish people from murder during the Holocaust. For decades, we knew of only one Irish victim of the Holocaust; Ettie Steinberg, who died at Auschwitz aged 28. Holocaust Education Ireland recently learnt of five other Irish victims of the Holocaust, including Ettie’s husband and their infant son.

Many Holocaust survivors arrived in Ireland as refugees after the Second World War. They settled and made their lives here, contributing to Irish life and culture.