At first he refused to leave as his friends, including Manfred, were the only family he had. But ten months later, he travelled to England to be reunited with his mother, who he had barely met. We were woken up with music, dancing - the Russian army liberated us on the 8 May 1945. And I did survive. We had no parents, we had no brothers or sisters, we had nobody. We’re just on our own. Everyone was on their own. Last year, he spoke to Kate Middleton about his experiences in the camp alongside fellow survivor Mr Shipper. While in the camp, she kept a golden pendant safe from the SS guards by hiding it first in her shoe and then in her daily bread ration.

The paintings, which were commissioned by Prince Charles, reveal four women and three men who survived the Holocaust.There they were loaded onto open wagons again, once more with no provisions against hunger or the cold. This journey continued for many days and nights, Arek was even reduced to eating grass during a rare break from the journey. Many men died during this journey. What happened was a young mother, she had a baby in her arms, and they wanted the mother, but they didn't want the child. They tried to take it out of her arms and she started screaming.

They were marched through freezing conditions, with no food or rest. Those who lagged behind were shot. When they reached a Katowice, Poland, they were put into goods wagons and began the journey to Buchenwald concentration camp. The journey lasted several days, and they were given no food. Arek and his friend had managed to steal a bag of semolina from Auschwitz, which staved off some of the hunger. Mysterious 'witch bottles' appear along the Gulf of Mexico - and researchers are avoiding opening them Hersh was included in a group of 300 Holocaust-surviving children who, following their liberation, were brought to the Lake District in England as part of a rehabilitation plan. Their journey is documented in the BBC film The Windermere Children. [5] [6] They were given just seven hours of English lessons and had to learn the rest for themselves. But his mother Bluma, father Szmuel, sisters Itka and Dvora and brother Tovia all perished in Chelmno extermination camp in 1942. Only his older sister Mania survived, escaping to Russia. Arek was sent to a ghetto in the Polish city of Lodz.He says: “I only survived because I said I was a tailor. I thought they’d need people to sew their uniforms. I couldn’t do anything but they took my word for it. This year marks the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a Nazi German concentration and death camp that executed almost 1.2 million people, mostly Jews, during World War II.I didn’t know what to do, I was on my own, the older people didn’t have time for me you know. So I went out on the street. I sat on the corner and I started crying, I didn’t know what to do.” Ms Levy grew up in the former Czechoslovakia where she felt the start of the Nazi persecution came when Jewish children were barred from going to school. You have shown the most breath-taking courage to speak in schools and communities across our country. After returning to Lodz in 1942, he was one of 185 children to be sent by train to Auschwitz/Birkenau. There, he worked as an agricultural labourer for the SS, and then in the fishing commando - catching fish to be transported to Germany for food. In January 1945, Arek was forced to walk for three-days in freezing temperatures to Buchenwald, where he was a prisoner until April 1945. He was then sent to Theresienstadt. Arek arrived in the Lake District in August 1945 as one of the 300 children who were brought there.

I survived because I worked for the camp commander, he must have taken pity over me as he’d leave bread for me when I went to his house,” said Arek. In August 1945 the first children, who were mainly Polish and many of whom were still in camps as they had nowhere to go, were transported in RAF planes that had delivered their cargo and were on their way home. The award-winning film entitled Arek documented his return, as an adult, to the places of his childhood “where murder was a way of life” and the audience watched on as they saw Arek revisit the streets of the notorious Lodz ghetto and the infamous extermination camp Auschwitz II known as Auschwitz-Birkenau.In July 1944, a 20-year-old Ms Ebert and her family - mother and five siblings - were transported to Auschwitz.