Slovak journalist memorialises Righteous

A journalist with a Slovak radio station has told a British-born Jewish heritage activist how she dedicated seven years to memorialising her fellow countrymen and women who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

Dagmar Mozolová, who works for Radio Slovensko, told Jonny Daniels from the Jewish heritage organisation From the Depths how she had told the stories of 138 Slovaks honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Mozolová, who has won awards for her literature and journalism, documented the Shoah heroes’ stories and put them together in 26 documentaries, told through her 40-minute radio show, which has 300,000 listeners.

“I don’t want society to forget them,” she said. “A lot of the stories are unknown. They lived within families. People were never honoured by official titles.”

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Mozolová said many Jews came to Slovakia to look for those who had saved them or their family members, which she found out after moderating a 2013 radio discussion on Christian-Jewish relations.

This proved the inspiration and, last year, Mozolová opened a foundation to help her make documentary videos and write a book about the stories, including that of the heavily-pregnant Slovak mother who saved 11 Jews despite living next door to a family of German Nazis.

“After this live discussion on the radio, I couldn’t fall asleep. I wanted to know why they hid them, where, how… ”

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