AS the season of goodwill approaches, pupils at Buckie Community High School have heard an inspirational tale of survival against the odds from a Holocaust survivor. Joanna Millan (76) was sent to a concentration camp when she was just a baby, but survived and was eventually adopted by a British couple in 1945. She now visits schools to tell her story and hopefully prevent history from repeating itself. To an often hushed Highfield Hall, Mrs Millan – born Bela Rosenthal in 1942 in Germany – told the audience of S2 and S6 pupils how she was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp, north of Prague, in 1943 along with her mother. She was barely a year old.
Earlier the same year, her father was seized from the street in Berlin and taken to Auschwitz, where he was murdered on arrival. When only 18 months old, Mrs Millan’s mother contracted tuberculosis and died, leaving her an orphan in a brutal world where death was a daily reality, mitigated only by the kindness and sacrifice of other inmates, often at great risk to themselves. After the Soviets liberated the camp in 1945 she was taken to the UK and adopted by a childless Jewish couple, who made her change her name as it sounded “too German”. Mrs Millan was keen to put the lessons from the Holocaust into a modern context, stressing it was the duty of everyone to fight intolerance and racism. “During the Holocaust, what was happening was normalised, the
horrors were normalised,” she told the Advertiser. “Neighbours didn’t think they were doing anything wrong informing on their Jewish neighbours or taking their property after they were deported. We even got receipts for the train fare we had to pay to the camp. Even today, Nazis don’t think they did anything wrong. “But the story of the 1930s is happening today. I suppose it’s human nature to fear the outsider and think they are lesser than you; suddenly they become unacceptable to society, they’re taking our jobs, houses, places at our schools and there is a backlash. Our behaviour hasn’t really evolved that much from biblical times. “Education is so important, we must learn not to fear those who are different or are mavericks and encourage them. Without these people, we wouldn’t have had an
Einstein or a Van Gogh. “Can we change, can we learn? If I didn’t believe that, I couldn’t do what I do, going round the country speaking to schools and groups. Some will take it on board for life and go out and spread the word. It’s up to us all to act.” One of those who welcomed Mrs Millan to Buckie was S6 student Willow Daymond, who earlier this year visited Auschwitz along with classmate Tarla Ramage. She said: “It was very moving to find out about this time in history, I feel very lucky to have met Mrs Millan.” Teacher Donna Mackintosh, who helped organise the visit, added: “Her talk was excellent, everyone was fully focused on what she was saying and at times the hall was completely hushed. “Joanna had so much relevant information to share.”