Scottish Catholic Observer

The audience listened in stunned silence, for two hours, as John Dobai revealed the horrors of the Holocaust.

Born in Hungary, Mr Dobai was only 9 years old when Nazi troops occupied the country and began rounding up Jews in ghettos before transporting them to concentration camps. His friends and relatives were executed as part of the mass extermination that claimed the lives of approximately six million Jews across Europe. Mr Dobai and his mother narrowly escaped deportation to Auschwitz when his father, returning from a slave labour camp, managed to obtain Swedish visas.

Many in the audience were shocked by what they heard, being moved to tears as they listened to Mr Dobai recall horrific events he witnessed, including the brutal shooting of children in the street and families who threw themselves off buildings rather than face being captured by the Nazis.

He said that he had promised his cousin, who survived Auschwitz but witnessed her mother being sent to the gas chamber, that he would not be silenced and would continue to speak of the horrors. Mr Dobai stressed the importance of tolerance within communities today and the need to stand against any form of racial or religious discrimination. The audience were full of questions following his testimony ranging from his current religious beliefs to his view on friends and neighbours who became bystanders during the Nazi reign of terror but whom Mr Dobai and his family then had to return home to after liberation.

One teacher summed up the talk saying she felt ‘sad, horrified, amazed and hopeful,’ after hearing Mr Dobai’s story.

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—This story ran in full in the April 3 print edition of the SCO, available in parishes.