Kathy Hagler, a “fiercely intelligent” and compassionate Holocaust survivor who in her retirement began speaking out about the horrors of her past to local schools in Scotland, has passed away at the age of 82.
According to an obituary published on Friday in the newspaper she formerly worked at, the Inverness Courier, Kathy was a “wonderfully vivacious, warm and fiercely intelligent” woman who carried with her an “instinctive kindness” and joy for life.
She was also, according to past colleagues at the paper, a “multilingual, degree-laden Mensa member who didn’t suffer fools” and could often be seen, in the days of indoor smoking, engulfed in cigarette smoke as she typed away at her computer, ashtray overflowing.
But “behind the warm smile, there was deep pain and sadness,” the paper noted. One past colleague, Calum Macleod, recounted that Kathy’s own story “was probably more fascinating and tragic than any she covered.”
For many years, Kathy rarely, if ever, spoke about the horrors she encountered in her youth – so much so that her colleagues and even some close friends were “completely unaware” – until, in retirement in her 70s, she began to publicly recount her story after becoming concerned “that Nazi atrocities were gradually being forgotten.”
She was born in the Nazi-established Ghetto Munkács, in a part of Hungary that is now Ukraine, in 1942. In 1944, at 18 months old, she was smuggled out of the ghetto inside hand luggage in place of her brother, Lajos, who the Hungarian rescuer refused to take as he was suffering an outbreak of measles at the time.
When her Hungarian rescuer returned two weeks later, Kathy’s mother, Rita, and brother had already been shipped to Auschwitz. She would never see them again.
Her father, Zsigmond, had already disappeared in Nazi custody and was believed, according to her friend of nearly 20 years, Rhona Hay, to have been used by the Nazis to clear minefields by walking through them.
She was brought up by her grandmother and aunt in Budapest, before eventually making aliyah with them to Israel at the age of 16 to work in a kibbutz. Eventually, at the age of 35, she fell in love with the Highlands during a holiday and decided to stay.
In 2022, Kathy was interviewed as part of a BBC television documentary exploring minorities living in Scotland. “I have been frightened about being Jewish all my life”, Kathy told the programme. “But I fell in love with Scotland. I felt that the Scots suffered over the centuries just like the Jews have suffered over the centuries and the millennia.”
Following employment as an accountant, Kathy switched careers in her 40s to work in journalism. One journalist colleague, Catherine MacGillivray, whom Kathy took under her wing when she first became a journalist, said she was a “role model in showing how to overcome the worst form of horror.
“As a Holocaust survivor, she lived with neither bitterness nor hatred, but with kindness, compassion and love.”
According to Rhona, Kathy began speaking to primary schools in Inverness out of her own volition in her 70s and was active giving talks in schools and town halls before the Covid pandemic.
Rhona told the JC: “When I first met her, she never wanted to speak about her past. She would say ‘that was in the past, what’s the use?’
“But then she thought, ‘if I don’t talk about it, people aren’t going to know, and as many people as possible ought to know.’
“I don’t think she wanted to be known before that. She was a private person, worried that attention might bring [persecution].”
Rhona said Kathy, who spoke Hungarian, Hebrew, Russian, English and some German, was “such an interesting person, and happy, or at least appeared that way.”
She became involved in the formerly “thriving” Jewish community of Inverness through the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC), through which she met Rhona.
Former news editor at Highland news and Media, Hector Mackenzie, said it was a “pleasure and honour” to work with Kathy, “one of the most interesting, funny and intelligent people I have ever met,” adding, “there are many lives that will have been touched by her.”
Kathy passed away in the care of Highland Hospice on December 12. Her funeral will take place on January 10 at noon, in Inverness Crematorium, and all are welcome to attend.
