From Auschwitz to the Tay: Dundee’s Links to The Holocaust

Dundee Culture
3 days ago
3 min read

Article written by Ben Kean, Holocaust Educational Trust, Regional Ambassador

John Fletcher was the only known Dundonian who perished at Auschwitz (Picture: Auschwitz Memorial-Museum)

On 27 January 1945, the Red Army successfully liberated the notorious Nazi extermination camp - Auschwitz. What was uncovered that day, was just one part of the story.

The Holocaust is defined as ‘The murder of approximately six million Jewish men, woman and children by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during the Second World War.’

This is just a definition and to gain some comprehension of what went on and understand the contemporary relevance of The Holocaust, we need to humanise The Holocaust.

One of the most effective ways to do so, is by learning about individual stories of the Holocaust. Edith Mackay (Steiner), Irena Jendrycha and John Fletcher are three victims who were born or lived in Dundee and here is their story of the Holocaust.

Edith Mackay (Steiner) was born in Hungary and arrived at Auschwitz, from the Hungarian Ghetto in June 1944. Edith with her mother suffered the horrors of Auschwitz for six weeks before being marched with Nazi guards to another concentration camp.

While on this march British Soldiers helped rescue some of the Jewish prisoners and this included Edith. One of the soldiers was a man called John MacKay, once rescued Edith was asked by John to dance at a party in a village hall.

Edith and John fell in love and eventually were married in Scotland on 17 July 1946. The couple ran a hotel in Pitlochry together before moving to Broughty Ferry in 1997.

Edith and John were married for 71 years until Edith passed away in 2017 at age 92. Edith sadly lost 39 of her immediate family members in the Holocaust.

Irena Jendrycha was born in an Austrian death camp. Irena and her mother, who was polish, were liberated from the camp by US soldiers and then spent the first five years of her life living in refugee and displaced sites in Italy, England, and Scotland before settling in Dundee for the rest of her adult life. Irena gave back the rest of her life, helping those in need whenever she could.

John Fletcher was arrested by the Nazis in France in 1942. John was born in the Overgate on 12December 1892. He served with the British Army in WWI and went on to settle in France and married Lucia Fontaine in 1921.

John worked at a government-owned aircraft factory in the town of Meaulte but eventually the German came through this part of France in 1940 and took over the factory.

Two other workers in the factory Ernest and Rene Pignet had been helping shot-down Allied airmen and escaped prisoners of war. Someone denounced these men to the Gestapo and on 20May 1942, German military police raided the factory and arrest Ernest and Rene alongside John.

John had in fact assisted Ernest and Rene. John was first imprisoned in Frontstalag 122 and then eventually deported to Auschwitz on 8July 1942, his number was 45544. Sadly, as a 50-year-old war veteran, John lasted just 21 days before he perished in Auschwitz. John’s cause of death is not known.

These humans are a close reminder of the atrocities committed by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Second World War. In the uneasy world today, their stories play a stark reminder of what can happen when people do not stand up to antisemitism and any other form of hate.

A small number of Jewish people do still reside in Dundee. David Cohen, a medical student, and vice-president of the University of Dundee Jewish Society, tell us why Holocaust remembrance is important to himself, as a young Jew living in Dundee. “

Ironically, Holocaust Memorial Day falls on the same day as my birthday reminding me how my grandmother would say that the greatest victory against the Nazis was us grandchildren.

Life itself, in response to an ideology that sought to exterminate Europe of its Jews, is the strongest form of resistance.

HMD allows these names to come back to life. Edith and John Mackay lived in Blair Atholl, where I’m from, and used to visit my parents’ café. Remembering them as people not numbers and speaking up against injustice and autocracy, because it all starts with words.’