As volunteers with the British Red Cross immediately after the war, dr. Robert (Bob) Collis and Han Hogerzeil tended to hundreds of young children who had survived Bergen-Belsen. After primary recovery at Bergen-Belsen Field Hospital, they went on UNRRA White Boats to Sweden with hundreds of children on July 26, 1945. Later, Bob and Han brought six of these children to Ireland and adopted two of them.
Only four children brought to Sweden during the UNRRA White Boat Mission were adopted in Scandinavia. Two of them to Finland, one in Sweden, and one in Denmark. It is likely that "Swedish Jews" were at the same time adopting Christian children born in Sweden.
Most orphans left Sweden during 1946-1947 heading for Eretz Israel.
Six of the children in the Bergen-Belsen Field Hospital – Zoltan and Edit Zinn, Tibor (Terry) and Suszi (Suzi) Molnar, Evelyn Schwarz, and Franz Berlin – became Bob’s ‘special charges’. Zoltan and Edit Zinn were of Slovak origin. Two of their siblings had not survived – their baby sister died in the cattle car on the way to the camps, and their brother, Aladar, died immediately after liberation, as did their mother. Bob and Han managed to nurse Zoltan through tubercular pleurisy and critical complications.
Tibor and Suszi Molnar came from a Jewish-Hungarian background. All of their family had been murdered by the Nazis and their mother, Gisella, died in Bergen-Belsen immediately after liberation in April 1945. Evelyn Schwartz was a little German-Jewish girl, and Franz Berlin was so-called because he had been picked up unconscious in the street in Berlin and brought to the hospital in Belsen.
After many of the children in the camp had been restored to health, they were repatriated to their different countries. The Swedish government invited hundreds of the remaining orphans to Sweden, where they could recuperate further. Since nobody appeared to claim ‘Bob’s children’, he eventually brought them home to Ireland. They stayed in Fairy Hill, a beautiful open-air hospital on the Hill of Howth near Dublin for some months for further convalescence. Bob and his wife made Zoltan and Edit part of their own family and the children added ‘Collis’ to their own names. Bob arranged the first formal adoption in Ireland when he organized for Tibor (Terry) and Suzi Molnar to be adopted by a Dublin Jewish couple, Willie and Elsie Samuels. Evelyn Schwartz was also adopted by a Dublin couple who later moved to Australia.
Tibor and Suszi Molnar came from a Jewish-Hungarian background. All of their family had been murdered by the Nazis and their mother, Gisella, died in Bergen-Belsen immediately after liberation in April 1945. Evelyn Schwartz was a little German-Jewish girl, and Franz Berlin was so-called because he had been picked up unconscious in the street in Berlin and brought to the hospital in Belsen.
After many of the children in the camp had been restored to health, they were repatriated to their different countries. The Swedish government invited hundreds of the remaining orphans to Sweden, where they could recuperate further. Since nobody appeared to claim ‘Bob’s children’, he eventually brought them home to Ireland. They stayed in Fairy Hill, a beautiful open-air hospital on the Hill of Howth near Dublin for some months for further convalescence. Bob and his wife made Zoltan and Edit part of their own family and the children added ‘Collis’ to their own names. Bob arranged the first formal adoption in Ireland when he organized for Tibor (Terry) and Suzi Molnar to be adopted by a Dublin Jewish couple, Willie and Elsie Samuels. Evelyn Schwartz was also adopted by a Dublin couple who later moved to Australia.
