Noel Aaron Russell

Oct 5, 2024 | belfasttelegraph.co.uk | Noel Aaron Russell |Noël Russell

A new account of the Holocaust explores how the small numbers of refugees admitted to Northern Ireland made a major contribution to its economic and cultural lifeIn August 1938, a short news item appeared in a Jewish newspaper in Vienna, describing a Stormont scheme which the city’s Jews hoped would save them from intense Nazi persecution.

Oct 5, 2024 | belfasttelegraph.co.uk | Noel Aaron Russell |Noël Russell

REVEALED | Small numbers of refugees admitted to Northern Ireland during Holocaust made major contribution to economic and cultural lifeFranz Kohner (rear, centre) ran the Refugee Resettlement Farm at Millisle, County Down with his wife Edith from July 1939. He later set up a successful clothing company in Belfast, Belart Ltd.

Sep 29, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Noel Aaron Russell |Noël Russell

While Ireland and Britain struggle to deal with an influx of migrants, with hundreds of victims drowning in their attempts to reach England’s shores, few know about the efforts of hundreds of Austrian Jews to flee Nazi terror under a Northern Ireland government scheme in 1938. The project was not an altruistic policy, but an attempt to deal with the North’s chronic unemployment.

Sep 16, 2024 | belfasttelegraph.co.uk | Noel Aaron Russell |Noël Russell

New book is first comprehensive account of how the Northern Ireland government responded to Jewish appeals for help on the eve of the Holocaust, revealing how 125 of those rejected were later murdered by the NazisSeveral hundred Austrian Jews applied to come to Northern Ireland in 1938 under a Stormont scheme to tackle a huge unemployment figure here of 100,000. Among them was Otto Goldberger, a Jewish shirt factory owner in Vienna.

Sep 14, 2024 | irishnews.com | Noel Aaron Russell |Noël Russell

It is 86 years since several hundred Viennese Jews tried to escape Nazi persecution by applying to come to Northern Ireland through the New Industries (Development) Act, in most cases without success. Within four years, by the end of 1942, a third of Vienna’s Jewish community had been murdered, around 65,000 men, women, and children. Of the 730 or so people mentioned in the letters sent by roughly 300 applicants in the PRONI files, at least 125 were killed in the Holocaust.