To mark Holocaust Memorial Day this week, Angela Cohen – mum of Robert Rinder – remembers her father, whose entire family were among the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust…
Asa little girl in the 60s, Angela Cohen noticed that her family home was always full of clocks. There would be several in every room, on the walls, on mantlepieces…
Her father, Moishe Malenicky, was just 15 when the Germans invaded his hometown of Piotrkow in Poland at the start of the Second World War.
They sent his entire family to the Treblinka concentration camp. Only Moishe survived.
‘The clocks were there because he’d lost track of time in the camps,’ recalls Angela. ‘Every single pocket in his clothes would contain a packet of biscuits or crackers – just in case.’
Moishe never spoke about his murdered family. ‘I knew I was named after his mother, Hannah,’ says Angela. “But I wasn’t even sure if he had siblings.
‘My father had PTSD – he’d lose his temper and scream and shout very quickly. That was scary, but my mum’s way of explaining it to two little girls – me and my sister Irene – was that he’d been through the camps and lost his entire family. She said Hitler came and took them all away.’
Her father was one of 732 children – most of whom had lost their entire families – who arrived in the UK in 1945. The children were settled in special hostels around the country and became known as ‘The Boys’ – although there were about 180 girls among them.
Moishe, like others, went on to build a successful career and raise a family. And in 1963 a group of The Boys – led by the late Sir Ben Helfgott MBE – founded The ’45 Aid Society, a charity set up to look after each other and to give back to their adopted country.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned
As Angela grew up, she and Moishe never discussed the concentration camps. ‘He didn’t want to go there,’ she shares. ‘And I intuitively understood that it was all too much for him to talk about. It’s really sad.’
Angela went on to marry at 19, and divorce at 29, bringing up Robert and his brother Craig as a single parent.
In 1998 Moishe told Angela that some of The Boys were going back to Piotrkow. The Polish government was giving a proper Jewish burial to hundreds of Jews who had been shot and buried in a mass grave in the town.
‘He’d had a stroke, and he asked if Rob and Craig would go with him,’ says Angela. ‘My father would never have admitted he was concerned about going on his own.
‘I said: “Okay, but I want to come as well”. He didn’t want
