Madam, – In this month of remembrance it is fitting that survivors of the holocaust such as Tomi Reichental (Home News, November 3rd)) should continue to give real witness to the depravity of the Nazi terror during the second World War. Unfortunately in the analysis of that period it seems to have been forgotten, particularly within Ireland, that Irishmen were also subjected to the extremes of fascism.
In February 1943, 32 Irish-born merchant seamen, captured while serving on British and Allied merchant vessels, were forced to work as slave labourers by the Gestapo on the construction of the U-Boot Bunker Valentin, located on the river weser in Bremen-Farge. Five of them died later as a result of illtreatment. The Gestapo had attempted on several previous occasions to persuade the Irish to sign a bit of paper to indicate they would become free-workers for the Nazi regime. Led by Irish-born British merchant navy officers, to a man they refused to sign. Unbeknown to the Irish, the Gestapo had immediate plans to send them on to a concentration (KZ) camp and eventual execution for their continual refusal to sign up and work voluntarily. Unlike captured military personnel who were regarded as prisoners of war, a status which attracted the immediate protection of the International Red Cross, the Irish, as merchant seamen and as civilians had no protection from the International Red Cross in Arbeitslager Farge.
It is to their inestimable credit that these Irish-born merchant seamen resisted the Gestapo effort to recruit them into the Nazi propaganda machine. All showed immense courage in the face of the Nazi terror and their experience should also be included and vindicated as part of the holocaust. – Yours, etc,