5 September 2018

Sixty-seven men, women and children – including many from Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue (NPLS) – took part in a wild river swim in the Czech Republic in memory of an incredible woman who survived the Holocaust.

The large group swam down the River Elbe in Kolín, Prague, as part of the first ever Hana Greenfield Memorial Swim. It was also the first time in 80 years that anyone has swam in the river, which has been the subject of a two decade long clean-up campaign.

The swim was the idea of two women – Hana’s daughter Meira Partem, who lives in Israel, and NPLS member Jane Drapkin.

Hana was one of the few survivors of the Nazi deportation of the 500 Jews of Kolín. She had spent much of her youth in the 1930s swimming in the river – with both Jewish and non-Jewish friends – before being deported to Terezin and then to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.

After liberation, she moved to Britain then Israel, becoming a noted author, journalist and educator. She helped to keep the memory of Kolín’s Jews alive, instituting an annual prize for school students to write about the town’s Jewish heritage. She died in 2014.

Four generations of Hana’s family were present for the event. They included her 92-year-old widower Murray Greenfield, who was there to cheer on all those taking part.

Jane, a wild swimming enthusiast who has already swum the English channel, was a driving force behind the event. She was inspired to help keep the memory of the Jews of Kolín alive by Northwood’s Czech Torah Scroll which comes from the town.

Led by its Emeritus Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein, NPLS is dedicated to remembering Kolín’s once thriving Jewish community, which dated back to the 14th century but was almost entirely wiped out by the Nazis.

The town’s current mayor, school and residents also work enthusiastically to protect that memory. The 320-year-old Baroque synagogue, restored in the 1990s, is now a thriving concert hall and exhibition space, and still used as a synagogue when the occasion arises – for example annually when the NPLS Kabbalat Torah class visits. There are also Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) and a monument to commemorate the town’s Jewish residents killed in the Holocaust.

People of many different nationalities and generations took part in the swim, choosing from a variety of distances.

Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein, who is also president of Liberal Judaism, blessed the swimmers before they set off. He said: “Kolín is very special. Thanks to the interest of Northwood & Pinner Liberal Synagogue, and the support and enthusiasm of the mayor and other civic officials and historians, this town without Jews had done more than any other Czech town to keep alive the memory of its Jewish community murdered in the Holocaust.

“Who would have thought a swim in the river would unite Jews and non-Jews in this duty of remembrance?”

You can hear Jane talk about the swim on BBC Three Counties Radio here.