The granddaughter of a prominent Nazi has said she will be “forever grateful” for the opportunity to meet and discuss the past with Irish Holocaust survivor Tomi Reichental. 

The Slovakian born Jew died at the age of 90 in Dublin over the weekend.

As a child, Mr Reichental lost 35 members of his family in the Holocaust and was imprisoned in Bergen Belsen concentration camp, following his capture by the Gestapo. 

Although he did not speak about his experiences for many decades, he decided to share his story after his retirement and gave talks to tens of thousands of people across Ireland. 

On The Claire Byrne Show, journalist Alexandra Senfft said she met him after she became aware that a producer was hoping to find the descendant of a prominent Nazi in Slovakia to meet Tomi for the documentary Close To Evil. 

Ms Senfft’s grandfather was Hanns E Ludin, the so-called “envoy of the Third Reich to Slovakia”, who signed the deportation order that sent Jews to their deaths. 

“We decided we would meet in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, where my grandfather was residing as a Nazi at the time until 1945,” she recalled. 

“So, I got on a train and my daughter came with me; she was very hesitant at the beginning because she said history is so far detached from me.” 

Tomi Reichental and Alexandra Senfft. Image: Supplied. 

On the way to Slovakia, Ms Senfft recalls feeling “very anxious” and wondered what the man she was about to meet would be like. 

“I had no idea how would Tomi receive me?” she said. 

“Because he might have had feelings of hatred, of revenge, or be fearful of this granddaughter? Is she maybe evil as her grandfather was? 

“I mean, there were so many feelings involved.”

Tomi Reichental in Bergen Belsen. Picture by: Holocaust Education Ireland.

Getting off at the station, Ms Senfft felt a wave of emotions but soon realised that she need not have worried. 

The man standing to greet her was not looking for vengeance, he was looking for the truth and understanding. 

“There was Tomi standing there,” she recalled. 

“This lovely short man, I'm also quite short and I got out of the train and instead of kind of stiffly shaking hands, we immediately embraced.

“That was such an emotional moment because at that very moment we realised we're on a kind of similar mission - we both think we must talk across the abyss of the past.” 

Holocaust survivors Tomi Reichental, Geoffrey Phillips, Suzi Diamond, Zoltan Zinn-Collis at the National Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration in the Mansion House, Dublin. Photo: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland.

Eventually, Ms Senfft plucked up the courage to ask him something - would he like to visit the grave of Hanns E Ludin with her? 

“I will never forget the moment when we were standing above that grave and we spoke very quietly,” she said. 

“I said, ‘Tomi, I'm glad you're alive.’ 

“Here we are together at this grave and then suddenly he started calling the names of his family members that were murdered. 

“I remember I got so emotional, I burst out with tears and then we kind of held hands together.

“We both grieved over those that were murdered; he helped me even grieve for the fact that I had a grandfather that was a war criminal and a grandfather that I actually never met because he was executed in Bratislava.”

Bergen-Belsen. Picture by: AP Photo. 

More than a decade on, Ms Senfft views meeting Tomi as a “healing moment” for her, but not one that can erase her family’s dark past. 

It is one that she will be “forever grateful” to him for and there is a picture of him on her desk to this day. 

“But you cannot undo the guilt that was that was done,” she said 

“And it is something that I carry with me.”

Main image: Tomi Reichental. Image: Supplied.