0:00:02 > 0:00:07This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find disturbing
0:00:07 > 0:00:11I always felt that having my grandparents around me is very important, um...
0:00:11 > 0:00:14I knew that she hadn't spoken about the Holocaust much in her history,
0:00:14 > 0:00:17in her past, to her family and she always told me
0:00:17 > 0:00:20and my sister, like, "Whenever you want to pick up the phone
0:00:20 > 0:00:23"and say, 'Listen, Granny, can I speak to you about something?'"
0:00:28 > 0:00:32Um...in school whenever a teacher would ask,
0:00:32 > 0:00:35"Did any of you have a Holocaust survivor in your family?"
0:00:35 > 0:00:38I would raise my hand straightaway and tell them the story.
0:00:48 > 0:00:52My dad had a shoe factory so we lived very well -
0:00:52 > 0:00:55had an apartment in a very nice part of the city.
0:00:56 > 0:00:58We were a family
0:00:58 > 0:01:02of two parents and four children -
0:01:02 > 0:01:07an older brother, myself, then there was a younger brother
0:01:07 > 0:01:08and a little sister.
0:01:10 > 0:01:14She was very bright and very pretty,
0:01:14 > 0:01:15very beautiful,
0:01:15 > 0:01:19and she adored me - I was the hero.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23My older brother was physically handicapped.
0:01:23 > 0:01:27He was damaged during birth and he couldn't walk,
0:01:27 > 0:01:30but there was nothing wrong with him mentally.
0:01:33 > 0:01:361st September, we were coming back to school, we were
0:01:36 > 0:01:41coming back from vacation with the whole family and all the coffers
0:01:41 > 0:01:46with the stuff in and the helpers and everybody was on the train.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49And the train was full, everybody was panicking
0:01:49 > 0:01:52and wanted to be at home when the war started.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55Within eight days, they came to the town.
0:01:55 > 0:02:00I mean, the Poles were fighting with...they didn't have any defence.
0:02:00 > 0:02:01They had sabres.
0:02:03 > 0:02:07And these were big tanks and the army was like, you know,
0:02:07 > 0:02:10the German army was organised, they...
0:02:11 > 0:02:15They were...they were...within 14...
0:02:15 > 0:02:16I think... I don't remember the days,
0:02:16 > 0:02:20but within, I think, 14 days they occupied half of Poland.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25They were wearing these black uniforms with a skull on top and...
0:02:27 > 0:02:31..and they installed loudspeakers all over the town...
0:02:34 > 0:02:36..spreading hate propaganda.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41Hitler's speeches went on for hours and hours,
0:02:41 > 0:02:45so if somebody says that they didn't know what was going on,
0:02:45 > 0:02:48that was impossible, whether they liked it or not,
0:02:48 > 0:02:53because he never made any secret of what he was going to do to the Jews.
0:02:57 > 0:03:01We had white armbands with a blue...
0:03:01 > 0:03:05this Magen David, the Star of David, ja.
0:03:07 > 0:03:09At that time and all the time afterwards,
0:03:09 > 0:03:12I looked not like a Jewish girl.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16I looked like the advert of Goebbels for a German.
0:03:16 > 0:03:20Every second German stopped me in the street, "Why are you wearing this?"
0:03:21 > 0:03:24They didn't see a Jew looking like this.
0:03:24 > 0:03:28They had all these propaganda pictures picturing Jewish people
0:03:28 > 0:03:32like...they looked like monkeys, I've never seen anybody like this,
0:03:32 > 0:03:35and looking like animals, not like people.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38My dad was still working.
0:03:38 > 0:03:42They didn't pay him, but he had a collection of gold...
0:03:42 > 0:03:44of gold roubles
0:03:44 > 0:03:47and that saw us through a lot.
0:03:52 > 0:03:55The ghetto was established in '41.
0:03:55 > 0:03:59There were 30,000 people - they had to get us there
0:03:59 > 0:04:03and the one that we were in was called the Big Ghetto
0:04:03 > 0:04:09but it was really a small, erm... place.
0:04:09 > 0:04:14It was around the Jewish quarters where the synagogue was,
0:04:14 > 0:04:16ten people in a room.
0:04:17 > 0:04:22It was... They were terrible conditions.
0:04:22 > 0:04:24They would come and knock on doors
0:04:24 > 0:04:27and take people out and shoot them there and then
0:04:27 > 0:04:31and they would do the most terrible things,
0:04:31 > 0:04:35and they used to send people to work.
0:04:35 > 0:04:42Up till now, we survived because of my father's job that he had.
0:04:42 > 0:04:46My mother worked in another place there,
0:04:46 > 0:04:49but my older brother was still with us
0:04:49 > 0:04:52and my little sister was with us...
0:04:52 > 0:04:54not for long.
0:04:58 > 0:05:04My younger brother was taken to the, erm...
0:05:04 > 0:05:07to the armament factory.
0:05:07 > 0:05:09We never knew what happened to him
0:05:09 > 0:05:10during the war,
0:05:10 > 0:05:13we never saw him until the end of the war
0:05:13 > 0:05:14and two years later,
0:05:14 > 0:05:18after the end of the war, and he never talked about it.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21His own family doesn't know where he was, what he did.
0:05:27 > 0:05:31In 1942, there was...
0:05:31 > 0:05:33They took out...
0:05:33 > 0:05:38out of the 30,000, they took 20,000 people out of the ghetto
0:05:38 > 0:05:40and they had to stand there,
0:05:40 > 0:05:43and most of them went straight to the death camps.
0:05:43 > 0:05:47And the small ghettos, they shot everybody
0:05:47 > 0:05:52and some other people had to bury them in mass graves.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57I had to get to work at that stage
0:05:57 > 0:06:01because, if not, they would have deported me with the next lot.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05I had an, erm...
0:06:05 > 0:06:12an abscess on my tooth that was supposed to be filled
0:06:12 > 0:06:13and had a temporary filling,
0:06:13 > 0:06:16but there wasn't a dentist in town any more
0:06:16 > 0:06:19so I developed a big abscess here.
0:06:19 > 0:06:25I was going to the hospital to lance it or to do something
0:06:25 > 0:06:27and my uncle who lived with us there -
0:06:27 > 0:06:31it was a small little place, erm...
0:06:31 > 0:06:35helped to dress me, it was winter, it was very cold.
0:06:35 > 0:06:41And he pressed on this and, as a result, it burst,
0:06:41 > 0:06:44so my mother said, "You don't have to go to the hospital now,
0:06:44 > 0:06:48"because we will treat it ourselves."
0:06:48 > 0:06:54And that same morning, they took everybody from the hospital
0:06:54 > 0:06:55and they killed everybody.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00And my brother went to the hospital,
0:07:00 > 0:07:06but they shot all the people that were physically disabled.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08He knew exactly what was happening.
0:07:08 > 0:07:12He wasn't mentally retarded, he was bright.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17And he said... He took off his winter coat and he gave it to my mother
0:07:17 > 0:07:20and he says, "Give it to someone who will need it.
0:07:20 > 0:07:22"I won't need it any more."
0:07:23 > 0:07:24And she came home with a coat.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35It was March 1944, they closed the Little Ghetto
0:07:35 > 0:07:39and we were the last remnant of that place.
0:07:39 > 0:07:44And they marched us to the railway station, there were no other Jews.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47From 30,000, they were the last 300.
0:07:47 > 0:07:51It was our first concentration camp
0:07:51 > 0:07:55and the trip was as they describe - in a cattle truck, no ventilation,
0:07:55 > 0:08:00no water, no toilet facilities, tiny little window
0:08:00 > 0:08:03and packed people, only standing places.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07And they locked the doors, no light, no nothing,
0:08:07 > 0:08:13and from Radom we were taken to the first concentration camp
0:08:13 > 0:08:16which was Majdanek just outside Lublin.
0:08:22 > 0:08:29We were having one little suitcase each and we arrived in Majdanek
0:08:29 > 0:08:30and it was dismal.
0:08:30 > 0:08:32Everything was stripped.
0:08:32 > 0:08:34You had to strip naked in the snow
0:08:34 > 0:08:40and they were standing there in full uniform looking you up and down.
0:08:40 > 0:08:46Then they send you to the...to the showers and then you were given
0:08:46 > 0:08:51a wooden pair of...sort of shoes, they were not shoes
0:08:51 > 0:08:57but they had material on top and a thick wooden sole like that,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00and a striped uniform, a striped dress,
0:09:00 > 0:09:02and a white handkerchief on the head,
0:09:02 > 0:09:07and that was all you had in this winter, freezing cold weather.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11And there for the first time we saw the women SS.
0:09:12 > 0:09:17And in a way they were terribly cruel, they were awful women.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19I don't know where they get women
0:09:19 > 0:09:23with such...hatred in them, for what?
0:09:26 > 0:09:30There were five different camps in Majdanek.
0:09:30 > 0:09:34The fifth camp was a crematorium.
0:09:34 > 0:09:36We were totally separated from the men,
0:09:36 > 0:09:40so we didn't know where my father was and what he was doing.
0:09:41 > 0:09:46Six weeks in Majdanek and then they sent us somewhere else -
0:09:46 > 0:09:49the same story with, erm..
0:09:49 > 0:09:54cattle trucks with closed wagons, no air,
0:09:54 > 0:09:58no anything and we went to the next camp which was Plaszow.
0:10:03 > 0:10:05They had an enormous camp there.
0:10:06 > 0:10:11My mother was sent to another camp, and I had a friend.
0:10:11 > 0:10:15Most of the people there were from Krakow
0:10:15 > 0:10:18and from the vicinity of Krakow,
0:10:18 > 0:10:23which was a big, big country there - the whole south of Poland.
0:10:23 > 0:10:28It was a big camp and in charge of it was this horrible man
0:10:28 > 0:10:34that was depicted in the film Schindler's List.
0:10:34 > 0:10:37I think it was the best film that portrayed that camp,
0:10:37 > 0:10:41that was the camp where it took place.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44He was sitting there amusing himself by shooting at people.
0:10:44 > 0:10:47If he didn't like somebody, he shot them.
0:10:49 > 0:10:55They divided us into groups of ten, so...like the Romans.
0:10:55 > 0:10:59Ten women, ten in a team.
0:10:59 > 0:11:05And we had to push these terribly heavy and difficult wagons
0:11:05 > 0:11:11on the rails to take the stones to the quarry.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14It was a hell of a job, we could hardly manage.
0:11:14 > 0:11:18There were shootings and hangings, and there was no crematorium there...
0:11:19 > 0:11:22..only a hill where they used to burn the people
0:11:22 > 0:11:24and all the ashes used to fly over us -
0:11:24 > 0:11:28every day we had this, these ashes flying over us
0:11:28 > 0:11:32and we knew it was from the hill where they were burning the bodies.
0:11:33 > 0:11:37Doesn't matter stand and wait for them to come and count us
0:11:37 > 0:11:38about eight, half past eight.
0:11:38 > 0:11:43You had to stand to attention for hours in this freezing weather.
0:11:43 > 0:11:49And one day the woman... chief of the SS women -
0:11:49 > 0:11:55her name was Else Ehrich - and she had the most steely eyes...
0:11:55 > 0:11:58I've never seen such cold eyes in my life.
0:11:58 > 0:12:05They were wearing a uniform with a divided skirt and like a...
0:12:05 > 0:12:10not a hat, but like a little army sort of cap without a thing,
0:12:10 > 0:12:12like the soldiers used to wear.
0:12:12 > 0:12:13And they were...
0:12:13 > 0:12:17in many ways, they were worse than the men, they were terribly cruel.
0:12:17 > 0:12:22And this particular Elsa took delight in punishing children
0:12:22 > 0:12:25or hitting them, or sending them off somewhere.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29She was worse than anybody.
0:12:29 > 0:12:33She was not normal, she was like a wild animal.
0:12:33 > 0:12:35She was a terrible woman.
0:12:35 > 0:12:38Anyway, she was looking for a...
0:12:38 > 0:12:43a help in the house, a domestic servant.
0:12:43 > 0:12:48And of all these thousands of people, she picked me,
0:12:48 > 0:12:53maybe because I didn't look Jewish, maybe because... I don't know,
0:12:53 > 0:12:55I have no idea.
0:12:55 > 0:12:59"How old are you?" "18." "Where are you from?"
0:12:59 > 0:13:02I could speak German obviously.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06There was the head, this Else Ehrich,
0:13:06 > 0:13:09then there were two young SS women,
0:13:09 > 0:13:14one was called Meindl and the other was called Tustich.
0:13:14 > 0:13:19The Meindl girl was from a farm up north and she was taking pictures
0:13:19 > 0:13:23of me to send home, that the Jews don't look all like in the pictures.
0:13:27 > 0:13:32The soldiers in Russia needed blood, who do you think they took it from?
0:13:32 > 0:13:35The prisoners in the camps.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38So they used to raid on a Sunday
0:13:38 > 0:13:41when nobody was working, just resting.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45They used to come to the barrack and empty a barrack and take them
0:13:45 > 0:13:50to the Red Cross, there was a Red Cross part, and take blood
0:13:50 > 0:13:53from them as much as they could, not just one pint or half a pint,
0:13:53 > 0:13:55but a lot of people died
0:13:55 > 0:13:59because they didn't have food or liquid to replace the blood.
0:14:01 > 0:14:06One morning, I was lying on the top bunk
0:14:06 > 0:14:10trying to rest a bit from the heavy work and there is the raid.
0:14:10 > 0:14:12So, first comes the SS
0:14:12 > 0:14:17with a Red Cross on his arm with two guards
0:14:17 > 0:14:20and they're emptying the whole barrack.
0:14:20 > 0:14:24People trying to run away, the women knew what was waiting for them
0:14:24 > 0:14:27if they came from the Red Cross barrack,
0:14:27 > 0:14:31but it was like a death sentence because it was very difficult
0:14:31 > 0:14:34to recover from this when they emptied you of blood.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37And, erm...
0:14:37 > 0:14:40and I was thinking, "What do I have to do?
0:14:40 > 0:14:44"There is no other entrance, only this door that they came in
0:14:44 > 0:14:46"and there are two guards there
0:14:46 > 0:14:48"so there's no ways I can go through that door
0:14:48 > 0:14:50"and try and escape."
0:14:50 > 0:14:54All the women that tried to escape through the window,
0:14:54 > 0:14:56it was impossible, you couldn't.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00So I stayed on that top bunk and I didn't move,
0:15:00 > 0:15:02I said, "What will be will be."
0:15:02 > 0:15:07So they emptied the whole barrack and this SS man noticed
0:15:07 > 0:15:10that I was still there so he comes to the bed and he says,
0:15:10 > 0:15:12"What's wrong with you? Why aren't you there?"
0:15:12 > 0:15:13So I said, "I've got typhus,"
0:15:13 > 0:15:19which wasn't the truth. I didn't have typhus, I didn't have anything.
0:15:19 > 0:15:23So he puts his hand on my forehead and it's as cold as a cucumber.
0:15:23 > 0:15:26So he says, "Really?" so I said, "Yes."
0:15:26 > 0:15:28So he left me and he went.
0:15:30 > 0:15:32So that was another escape.
0:15:36 > 0:15:38My father was killed there.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42And he was an upright citizen,
0:15:42 > 0:15:46he was always fair with his workers.
0:15:46 > 0:15:47He couldn't come to terms
0:15:47 > 0:15:49with this whole situation.
0:15:49 > 0:15:55And his family were dispersed, he didn't know where and what,
0:15:55 > 0:15:57and, er...
0:15:57 > 0:16:02the child was gone and my mother was gone to another camp.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06He was killed by one of the kapo, one of the overseers there.
0:16:06 > 0:16:08He was beaten to death.
0:16:13 > 0:16:18And then from Plaszow, we were sent to Auschwitz.
0:16:19 > 0:16:22And that was an experience.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31Just before Yom Kippur, October,
0:16:31 > 0:16:34it was snowing, it was freezing cold,
0:16:34 > 0:16:39it was nearly the end of the war, it was 1944.
0:16:39 > 0:16:43And I met my mother there, at Birkenau, and my friend,
0:16:43 > 0:16:47my best friend from Poland was there in Birkenau
0:16:47 > 0:16:50and they both came running to me but they were really...
0:16:50 > 0:16:52they were very hungry.
0:16:52 > 0:16:56I was very happy that they were alive - that's the first thought.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01My mother was sent to another camp.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04I was sent with another hundred young girls
0:17:04 > 0:17:07to the proper camp Auschwitz, to the...
0:17:07 > 0:17:10It was called Musterlager.
0:17:10 > 0:17:14They took us off the train and we had to line up and again strip.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16and this terrible...
0:17:16 > 0:17:21and the men were separated from the women immediately -
0:17:21 > 0:17:26women and children on one side, men on the other side.
0:17:26 > 0:17:33And there stood Dr Mengele and his cronies
0:17:33 > 0:17:35fully dressed in uniforms
0:17:35 > 0:17:38and we had to parade in front of them.
0:17:39 > 0:17:42You can imagine what that felt like.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45He was just flicking his finger.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47If he flicked the finger to the left,
0:17:47 > 0:17:51the people were going straight to the crematorium.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54If to the right, they were going to the camp.
0:17:55 > 0:18:01So we were "sorted out", in inverted commas, that way.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05And those that were strong enough to work,
0:18:05 > 0:18:10they sent them to the proper Auschwitz.
0:18:12 > 0:18:13My sister wasn't there.
0:18:13 > 0:18:16My sister was already gone with the children's transport.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19All the mothers were there crying and the fathers
0:18:19 > 0:18:24and everybody stood on the platz where they counted us
0:18:24 > 0:18:27and they had loud music blaring over the loudspeakers
0:18:27 > 0:18:30when they took all the children away.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33And we knew they were going. I mean, where could they take children?
0:18:36 > 0:18:38She was sent into the ovens.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43The children were singing when they left.
0:18:47 > 0:18:51We were given a number, everybody gets tattooed. There's mine...still.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54I wouldn't let them remove it after the war.
0:19:03 > 0:19:07They came to shave every woman's head
0:19:07 > 0:19:11and they're also divided in groups of ten.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15I cannot describe to you how a girl looks without hair
0:19:15 > 0:19:21and this is the last thing they were sort of holding onto.
0:19:21 > 0:19:27The woman...came to cut my hair.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31The German SS woman has a look around and she looks
0:19:31 > 0:19:34and looks, "Uh-uh! Stop.
0:19:34 > 0:19:36"Don't cut her hair."
0:19:36 > 0:19:40I was the only one that didn't have their hair shaved, just cut shorter.
0:19:41 > 0:19:45It was a matter of surviving every minute.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48And it was for me because, OK, they didn't cut my hair,
0:19:48 > 0:19:52but then everyone of us got a bundle of clothes
0:19:52 > 0:19:57and they were not these striped clothes, they were civilian clothes.
0:19:57 > 0:20:01And, you know, they took it from the people obviously
0:20:01 > 0:20:04that were killed before.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07And I got a parcel of clothes - I was tall by then -
0:20:07 > 0:20:11that would have fitted a 12-year-old girl,
0:20:11 > 0:20:15and the shoes were these... so there my luck ended.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18The clogs...
0:20:18 > 0:20:21these clogs that they wear in Holland,
0:20:21 > 0:20:24you know, those wooden clogs, but they were too small,
0:20:24 > 0:20:27I couldn't put my foot into them.
0:20:27 > 0:20:29So I thought to myself, "Now this is the end.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32"They didn't cut my hair but they'll bury me now with my...
0:20:32 > 0:20:35"they'll burn me with my hair."
0:20:35 > 0:20:38As I stood there in the courtyard and I cried,
0:20:38 > 0:20:42I don't know how I'm going to survive here in these clothes.
0:20:42 > 0:20:47I couldn't wear these shoes stood in the snow, a micro-mini dress,
0:20:47 > 0:20:49nothing on my head.
0:20:49 > 0:20:51And in the middle of my tears -
0:20:51 > 0:20:57and this is as true as I sit here - I hear a voice calling my name.
0:20:57 > 0:21:01I can't see who it is because my tears are all over my face
0:21:01 > 0:21:04and my eyes, and on the other side of the fence
0:21:04 > 0:21:10there was...a young chap was standing and calling my name.
0:21:10 > 0:21:12So he says, "Come to the fence."
0:21:12 > 0:21:14So I'm coming near the fence and he says,
0:21:14 > 0:21:18"Wait right here for five minutes."
0:21:18 > 0:21:21So I said, "Who are you?
0:21:21 > 0:21:23"What are you doing, who are you?"
0:21:23 > 0:21:26So he says, "Never mind who I am, I'm in a hurry,
0:21:26 > 0:21:28"I used to work for your dad."
0:21:28 > 0:21:29So he recognised me,
0:21:29 > 0:21:34but I didn't know who he was, I had no idea, he was a Jewish chap.
0:21:34 > 0:21:36He went away and he came back.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39He was working with the clothes of the dead people
0:21:39 > 0:21:44that they just killed, erm... in the ovens and they gassed them.
0:21:44 > 0:21:48So he came back and he threw over the fence
0:21:48 > 0:21:52a parcel for me with clothes,
0:21:52 > 0:21:55and this was a life-saver.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59I'll never forget what was in that parcel
0:21:59 > 0:22:03because now I know that I can carry on.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07There were wonderful shoes with laces, leather shoes.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10There were stockings, there was underwear,
0:22:10 > 0:22:14there was a warm dress and a black velvet coat.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19The worst thing I remember from Auschwitz was the cold,
0:22:19 > 0:22:24the freezing cold that used to stand for hours outside
0:22:24 > 0:22:27and without any purpose,
0:22:27 > 0:22:30pushing these stones from one place to another.
0:22:30 > 0:22:35And some people recited poems. That was my job
0:22:35 > 0:22:39because we had to learn everything off by heart in those days.
0:22:39 > 0:22:42And so we kept our minds sort of...
0:22:44 > 0:22:47..away from this horrible prison.
0:22:47 > 0:22:51You had to have a break from it.
0:22:51 > 0:22:53Hunger is a terrible thing.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56It's not just being hungry that you come home and eat.
0:22:56 > 0:22:58It's starvation.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01There's nothing the next day, nothing the following day,
0:23:01 > 0:23:06and you feel weaker and you look like a skeleton.
0:23:06 > 0:23:10It's a horrible, horrible feeling.
0:23:10 > 0:23:15The medical block I did see, because we had two girls from my town
0:23:15 > 0:23:19who were identical twins, and they were very pretty.
0:23:19 > 0:23:23But you couldn't tell the difference between the one and the other,
0:23:23 > 0:23:28and he had them there up in the experimental block.
0:23:28 > 0:23:34We saw the girls upstairs in that experimental block,
0:23:34 > 0:23:37and I said, "You're lucky, you're warm there
0:23:37 > 0:23:41"and we sit in the frost and we're absolutely freezing."
0:23:41 > 0:23:46So she said - I'll never forget it - she said, "Don't envy us."
0:23:51 > 0:23:53On 10th of December it's my birthday.
0:23:53 > 0:23:55I would have had a big party
0:23:55 > 0:23:58and I would have been getting ready for university,
0:23:58 > 0:24:03I was put down to go to Rome, to Italy to study.
0:24:04 > 0:24:06And now sitting in Auschwitz,
0:24:06 > 0:24:09and I don't know what tomorrow will be.
0:24:09 > 0:24:13I had my future mapped up and it was a lot.
0:24:13 > 0:24:15And I said, "I'm too young to die, I can't die.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19"I'm too young, I haven't seen anything,
0:24:19 > 0:24:21"I haven't done anything yet.
0:24:21 > 0:24:26"So I've lost everything, but I'm too young to die, I don't want to die."
0:24:27 > 0:24:32So there was about three months altogether in Auschwitz,
0:24:32 > 0:24:34and then they evacuated.
0:24:34 > 0:24:38Can you imagine, the Russians came, I think, two days after we left.
0:24:39 > 0:24:43And why are we being marched to another concentration camp?
0:24:43 > 0:24:46Why? Why? Why?
0:24:46 > 0:24:49That question never ever left me.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55And there were lots of people being killed on the way,
0:24:55 > 0:24:58just shot because they couldn't walk any more.
0:24:58 > 0:25:04The road on both sides was just full of dead bodies.
0:25:04 > 0:25:06And the snow was red.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21And that was the biggest shock I've ever had
0:25:21 > 0:25:26since the beginning of the war. I saw plenty of people dying,
0:25:26 > 0:25:29being shot, being hanged,
0:25:29 > 0:25:32being punished, being tortured,
0:25:32 > 0:25:34but I've never seen a sight like this
0:25:34 > 0:25:37when we came to the gates of Bergen-Belsen.
0:25:39 > 0:25:44A huge mountain of dead bodies was in front,
0:25:44 > 0:25:46right to the left of the gate.
0:25:46 > 0:25:49But if I say huge, it was huge.
0:25:49 > 0:25:56Partly decomposing, that was our first impression of Bergen-Belsen.
0:25:56 > 0:25:58I just remember the shock of the conditions
0:25:58 > 0:26:02that even by standards of Auschwitz, this was the pits.
0:26:03 > 0:26:08I was clean and free of any vermin till I arrived in Bergen-Belsen,
0:26:08 > 0:26:12and then you couldn't help it. I got sick with typhus.
0:26:12 > 0:26:17There was no work to do because...there was no work.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20There was nothing to do. There were hundreds of people.
0:26:20 > 0:26:24There were Russian prisoners, there were Poles, just sitting and dying.
0:26:25 > 0:26:29They were sitting and starving
0:26:29 > 0:26:31and didn't have strength to get up.
0:26:31 > 0:26:34There was a girl next to me, a Hungarian girl,
0:26:34 > 0:26:39and all she could say in her broken German was,
0:26:39 > 0:26:42"I don't want to die. I don't want to die."
0:26:42 > 0:26:47So I said to her, "Then stop shouting! Preserve your energy.
0:26:47 > 0:26:49"Don't shout all the time."
0:26:49 > 0:26:52She was shouting, "I don't want to die," until she died.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57And people were being burned and people were being shot,
0:26:57 > 0:26:59and there was no order.
0:26:59 > 0:27:00It was just...
0:27:03 > 0:27:09Prisoners had to carry the corpses to where they were burning them.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12But we didn't budge from that one big hall.
0:27:12 > 0:27:16And eventually that hall was nearly empty.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20"I'm not going to die, I'm too young to die."
0:27:20 > 0:27:24That was a mantra that I was repeating all the time.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28I have just returned from the Belsen concentration camp,
0:27:28 > 0:27:32but beyond the barrier was a whirling cloud of dust,
0:27:32 > 0:27:36the dust of thousands of slowly moving people,
0:27:36 > 0:27:39laden in itself with the deadly typhus germ.
0:27:40 > 0:27:44And with the dust was a smell, sickly and thick.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48The smell of death and decay, of corruption and filth.
0:27:49 > 0:27:51I passed through the barrier
0:27:51 > 0:27:53and found myself in the world of a nightmare.
0:27:55 > 0:27:59Dead bodies, some of them in decay, lay strewn about the road
0:27:59 > 0:28:01and along the rutted tracks.
0:28:01 > 0:28:04On each side of the road were brown wooden huts.
0:28:04 > 0:28:06There were faces at the windows,
0:28:06 > 0:28:10the bony, emaciated faces of starving women
0:28:10 > 0:28:11too weak to come outside,
0:28:11 > 0:28:14propping themselves against the glass
0:28:14 > 0:28:16to see the daylight before they died.
0:28:20 > 0:28:22But there were not enough doctors,
0:28:22 > 0:28:26and they established a hospital outside the camp.
0:28:26 > 0:28:29Yes, and the one thing that annoyed us most of all
0:28:29 > 0:28:34was that we were closed in the camp and we were not allowed to go out
0:28:34 > 0:28:36because they didn't want the neighbourhood
0:28:36 > 0:28:38to get all these diseases -
0:28:38 > 0:28:43that means the Germans or the people that lived around us.
0:28:43 > 0:28:48So they locked us into the camp and we were not allowed to come out.
0:28:48 > 0:28:51But they didn't have enough doctors.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54They didn't have medicines. They had nothing.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56And they didn't have suitable food for all these people.
0:28:56 > 0:29:02They were starving and they fed them on this fat, fat meat and things,
0:29:02 > 0:29:05and people got sick all over again.
0:29:06 > 0:29:08And the people were dying.
0:29:08 > 0:29:13There were 30,000 people that died after the liberation.
0:29:13 > 0:29:18I felt terrible. I lost the only friend I had right through the camps
0:29:18 > 0:29:23when I was separated from my mother and from my whole family.
0:29:23 > 0:29:27She looked after me. She was an intelligent, bright girl.
0:29:27 > 0:29:32We always had talks about what we learned at school.
0:29:32 > 0:29:36She studied French and I studied German. We compared notes.
0:29:37 > 0:29:39It was terrible.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44And I heard that most of the people
0:29:44 > 0:29:48that survived from Radom were in Stuttgart.
0:29:48 > 0:29:51So I went by train.
0:29:51 > 0:29:55A friend came to fetch me, and we went back to, we went to Stuttgart.
0:29:57 > 0:30:00And there my mother came from Poland,
0:30:00 > 0:30:03so I met her there for the first time after the war.
0:30:03 > 0:30:05So it was very tearful,
0:30:05 > 0:30:09but it was happy in a way too that the two of us at least survived.
0:30:09 > 0:30:13The times after the war were very difficult.
0:30:13 > 0:30:15You had to start rebuilding your life.
0:30:15 > 0:30:20You had to deal with all the past, the terrible past,
0:30:20 > 0:30:22with all the losses that we...
0:30:22 > 0:30:25We didn't have time to deal with it while we were in the camps,
0:30:25 > 0:30:28but after the war was finished,
0:30:28 > 0:30:32then we started to think of all the things that happened to us.
0:30:32 > 0:30:36And there were no psychologists. There were no psychiatrists.
0:30:36 > 0:30:41There was no help, and we had to work it all out by ourselves.
0:30:41 > 0:30:44But then my uncle in Paris,
0:30:44 > 0:30:47he knew that we were there, so he sent for us.
0:30:51 > 0:30:55Everybody there in France was busy building their lives
0:30:55 > 0:30:59from the beginning again after the war,
0:30:59 > 0:31:04and sort of in a way recovering, recuperating,
0:31:04 > 0:31:06but it wasn't the future.
0:31:06 > 0:31:09I knew that this wasn't our future.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12And then we had to find my brother. We didn't know where he was.
0:31:12 > 0:31:18Eventually we found out from the family that he's in Israel already.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21There was an American woman from the WIZO,
0:31:21 > 0:31:25from the Zionist Organisation who gathered...
0:31:26 > 0:31:30She collected a lot of young children
0:31:30 > 0:31:34and young...youngsters, teenagers from...
0:31:34 > 0:31:37that survived the camps, and she brought them to Israel.
0:31:37 > 0:31:39He was a teenager still.
0:31:39 > 0:31:41I can't remember, he was about...
0:31:41 > 0:31:44That was already one year after the liberation
0:31:44 > 0:31:48and then it was two years after the liberation. He wasn't 20 yet.
0:31:48 > 0:31:56And he was taken to this kibbutz on Lake Hulata.
0:31:56 > 0:31:59For two years he stayed and worked on this kibbutz,
0:31:59 > 0:32:02and then we spent two years in France
0:32:02 > 0:32:04living with my uncle and...
0:32:05 > 0:32:12..and until one of my uncles in Palestine,
0:32:12 > 0:32:16he organised two false passports for us, for me and for my mother.
0:32:16 > 0:32:20We were determined to get to Palestine,
0:32:20 > 0:32:24because that's where the rest of the family was.
0:32:24 > 0:32:26So we had to get to Marseille,
0:32:26 > 0:32:30and there was a camp of all the Jewish refugees.
0:32:30 > 0:32:35Some were trying to get illegally to Israel,
0:32:35 > 0:32:40and we helped pack this famous boat, Exodus.
0:32:40 > 0:32:44I was in Marseille at the time, and a couple of us
0:32:44 > 0:32:47who were in the camp went to...
0:32:47 > 0:32:52There were about 1,000, I think about 1,000 people on that boat,
0:32:52 > 0:32:56and that was the famous book and the picture that they made
0:32:56 > 0:33:01of this boat that came to Palestine and they wouldn't let them in.
0:33:03 > 0:33:07Eventually we went on a little Greek boat.
0:33:07 > 0:33:12It wasn't a very, very big boat, but it was a nice comfortable boat.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14And we arrived in Haifa.
0:33:24 > 0:33:28My little brother was six foot tall by the time we met him
0:33:28 > 0:33:30and we could hardly recognise him.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33He didn't meet us in Haifa. He couldn't come.
0:33:33 > 0:33:35But soon afterwards
0:33:35 > 0:33:40the War Of Independence broke out in '48 straightaway,
0:33:40 > 0:33:44and then I went to the army for two years
0:33:44 > 0:33:48and then a year later my brother went into the army.
0:33:48 > 0:33:53It was just a matter of get hold of yourself and get on.
0:33:55 > 0:33:59The time in Israel was a healing process.
0:34:01 > 0:34:05Financially we were very poor, we didn't have much,
0:34:05 > 0:34:09but as soon as the state was announced,
0:34:09 > 0:34:14my mother opened a canteen at the police station in Haifa.
0:34:14 > 0:34:16And she was doing very well there.
0:34:16 > 0:34:20We were very close, but it was a rule in the house,
0:34:20 > 0:34:22we are not talking about the camps.
0:34:22 > 0:34:25I... No, I had a...
0:34:27 > 0:34:29I had a bad time with my nerves.
0:34:29 > 0:34:35There were times that I couldn't cope with everything and, erm...
0:34:43 > 0:34:46He was different. He was quiet.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49He wasn't noisy like the Mediterranean people.
0:34:50 > 0:34:54And he loved music, which I also did.
0:34:54 > 0:34:58A lot of things. And we spoke Hebrew. I couldn't speak English.
0:35:00 > 0:35:06I took her out a few times before I really fell for her in a big way.
0:35:06 > 0:35:08And, erm...
0:35:12 > 0:35:14He never let me go.
0:35:15 > 0:35:18He phoned, he went out, and my mother said, "Look..."
0:35:18 > 0:35:24He came with two little nylon shirts that were washed every day
0:35:24 > 0:35:26and she couldn't get over it how poor he looked
0:35:26 > 0:35:34and where, you know, what is it. He looked really...funny.
0:35:34 > 0:35:37We got to know each other better.
0:35:37 > 0:35:44I proposed to her, and she agreed to marry me.
0:35:44 > 0:35:49So I had to do something
0:35:49 > 0:35:55in order to maintain her friendship and be there all the time,
0:35:55 > 0:35:58so I had to take a job in Israel in Haifa
0:35:58 > 0:36:05and I stayed there for six months, just to be close to Henia.
0:36:05 > 0:36:07I was completely smitten then.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11We didn't go out for a long time, about three or four months,
0:36:11 > 0:36:13and then we got married and I said,
0:36:13 > 0:36:16"I'll come to South Africa for one year only
0:36:16 > 0:36:20"to meet the family and then I'll go back home."
0:36:20 > 0:36:22But that never happened.
0:36:22 > 0:36:27When we arrived in Bloemfontein, it was on a cold winter's morning.
0:36:27 > 0:36:34It was freezing cold and I'm coming from this hot climate in Israel.
0:36:34 > 0:36:35And it was grim.
0:36:37 > 0:36:41All the smoke from all the chimneys was coming up
0:36:41 > 0:36:43and the station was so miserable.
0:36:43 > 0:36:49And the town looked like a little hick town, like a little village.
0:36:49 > 0:36:54I had to get a taxi to take us to my parents' home.
0:36:54 > 0:36:57I looked around and I said to Maurice,
0:36:57 > 0:37:00"Are you sure you didn't miss the station?
0:37:00 > 0:37:02"Is that the place that we came?"
0:37:02 > 0:37:04"No," he says, "this is Bloemfontein."
0:37:06 > 0:37:07Dead silence.
0:37:09 > 0:37:14I wanted to go right back into the train and go back.
0:37:14 > 0:37:20I brought her to a land where English was the language,
0:37:20 > 0:37:22and she couldn't speak English.
0:37:22 > 0:37:27The problem was to get her... to teach her how to speak English.
0:37:27 > 0:37:29And I stayed for 42 years.
0:37:29 > 0:37:33Eventually I became a principal of the school and I carried on.
0:37:37 > 0:37:39While I was courting her,
0:37:39 > 0:37:45she told me she had been a Holocaust survivor.
0:37:47 > 0:37:48It...
0:37:51 > 0:37:52It was a, erm...
0:37:55 > 0:37:59..a bit of a shock to hear about what had happened to her.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04I wanted children, I really did.
0:38:04 > 0:38:08Even during the war I always said to myself
0:38:08 > 0:38:10"I haven't lived yet,
0:38:10 > 0:38:13"I don't know anything about anything. I want children.
0:38:13 > 0:38:17"I want to make up for all those millions of children
0:38:17 > 0:38:20"that were killed, murdered."
0:38:20 > 0:38:22We were aware of what happened.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25We were aware of which family members we had lost.
0:38:25 > 0:38:28We knew this was always in the background,
0:38:28 > 0:38:31but the detail we didn't know.
0:38:31 > 0:38:35I didn't talk about the Holocaust to my sons, not to my husband.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38Of her time in the concentration camps
0:38:38 > 0:38:44she often had nightmares and she woke up screaming,
0:38:44 > 0:38:48and I had to sort of console her
0:38:48 > 0:38:54and, er...and try to settle her down
0:38:54 > 0:38:58during the nights.
0:38:59 > 0:39:02My 24-year-old son Richard, when he was still at school,
0:39:02 > 0:39:04I think he was 17 years of age,
0:39:04 > 0:39:08he had the privilege of going on the March Of The Living.
0:39:08 > 0:39:12And he went first to Israel,
0:39:12 > 0:39:16and then he went to the various camps that my mother had been in.
0:39:16 > 0:39:18And it was quite poignant
0:39:18 > 0:39:23because he celebrated his 17th birthday at Majdanek,
0:39:23 > 0:39:26which is where my mother had her 17th birthday.
0:39:26 > 0:39:29So she was there as an inmate
0:39:29 > 0:39:34and he was there as a visitor to see where she had been.
0:39:34 > 0:39:38And then subsequently I think he also, I forget the exact sequence,
0:39:38 > 0:39:42but he also visited Auschwitz,
0:39:42 > 0:39:46the camp Auschwitz, which I think is better preserved.
0:39:46 > 0:39:49And I subsequently heard that he phoned his grandmother
0:39:49 > 0:39:54and said, "I'm standing at the gates of Auschwitz.
0:39:54 > 0:39:58"Where were you in Auschwitz?"
0:39:58 > 0:40:01And she said, "I will direct you to the bungalow."
0:40:01 > 0:40:05And he was able to, on the cell phone, get directions
0:40:05 > 0:40:08to where his grandmother had been within the camp.
0:40:10 > 0:40:18I didn't want to influence their lives with my past and my suffering.
0:40:19 > 0:40:22If they asked a question I answered it,
0:40:22 > 0:40:27but I never discussed it and I could hear everywhere
0:40:27 > 0:40:32people talking about second generation syndrome of the Holocaust
0:40:32 > 0:40:36and the kids were affected if the parents both were in the camps
0:40:36 > 0:40:39and never stopped talking about it.
0:40:39 > 0:40:42And I didn't want them to grow up with any complexes.
0:40:42 > 0:40:45I don't know if I made a mistake or not, but that's how it was.
0:40:45 > 0:40:47She gave me a birthday present and said,
0:40:47 > 0:40:50"Do you know what the best birthday present I ever received?"
0:40:50 > 0:40:52I always thought at that age, what was it? Was it a jersey,
0:40:52 > 0:40:54was it a sweatshirt, was it this?
0:40:54 > 0:40:56And she said, "No, it was a piece of bread."
0:40:56 > 0:40:59And I know if she told you the story of one day in the Holocaust
0:40:59 > 0:41:03where it was her birthday and her closest friend had disappeared for the whole day.
0:41:03 > 0:41:05And she was cross with her friend
0:41:05 > 0:41:08because she wanted her friend to spend time with her in the camp
0:41:08 > 0:41:10and it was freezing and it was cold
0:41:10 > 0:41:12and her friend completely disappeared.
0:41:12 > 0:41:15And at six o'clock at night the friend came back and said,
0:41:15 > 0:41:17"Yeah, I've been working in the labour environment
0:41:17 > 0:41:21"to earn you an extra piece of bread for your birthday, as your birthday present."
0:41:21 > 0:41:24And I think for me that was the most telling story
0:41:24 > 0:41:28that she told me at my early days of manhood.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32That little story made me realise the values of life.
0:41:32 > 0:41:36And still I tell my children today when it comes to presents,
0:41:36 > 0:41:39and gifts are not real gifts, but it's a gift of love
0:41:39 > 0:41:42and it's a gift of just being yourself and enjoying life.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46And that one story stood with me and still sticks with me today
0:41:46 > 0:41:48as the one little lesson of many thousands
0:41:48 > 0:41:50one can learn from the concentration camps.
0:41:52 > 0:41:56And you know, sometimes I wonder myself, was I there? Was it true?
0:41:56 > 0:42:00Was I really there at that time in such places
0:42:00 > 0:42:02and lived through all these things?
0:42:02 > 0:42:06It can't be. It can't be. But it is.
0:42:07 > 0:42:09She came out of it. She started a new family.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12She started a new life and she decided to give new messages.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17There are lots of stories to tell, and they're so vivid.
0:42:25 > 0:42:32I want to say, just say that I'm just so crazy about her
0:42:32 > 0:42:35and I still want to be with her and...
0:42:36 > 0:42:41I'm not a hero. I don't want to be remembered for anything special,
0:42:41 > 0:42:45just a good mother and a grandmother, and a friend.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd