'I am the only member of my family to survive the Holocaust - their deaths must not be in vain'

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, marking 76 years since Auschwitz-Birkenau – the camp I was imprisoned in – was liberated by the Red Army. My parents, my three brothers, and four sisters were all murdered in the Holocaust. Today, I tell you their story because they cannot. I was the only one who survived.

I was born in 1929 in Romania. My family were religious Jews and lived a simple, peaceful life. Our world was disrupted when Hungary occupied our home in 1940. But, worse was to come. In 1944, Germany invaded Hungary.

The Nazis arrived in our village on the Jewish Sabbath. They cut off my father’s beard and took him away. We were told he was taken to dig trenches on the Eastern Front, but in fact, they had taken him to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The rest of my family were forced to leave our home and we were taken to a ghetto.

From there we were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the Nazis’ largest killing factory, where over one million Jewish men, women, and children were murdered. I was 14.

As soon as we got off the trains, I was asked how old I was. I lied, saying I was older and was selected for work, building a railway and unloading bags of cement from the trains. My mother, three brothers, and three of my sisters were taken straight to the gas chamber and murdered within hours of arrival. My eldest sister, Gitta was selected to work and went on to be sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Months later, when the Red Army was approaching, I was sent on a death march – a forced march where individuals were left to die along the way – to Sachsenhausen concentration camp, then onto Flossenbürg concentration camp, and finally, on another death march towards Dachau concentration camp.

During that last march, whilst we were all in a forest, the Nazis suddenly disappeared. Finally, after years of the most painful suffering, I was liberated by soldiers. I traveled with them to an American-run field hospital where I spent the next two months and then went on to a convent where I recuperated. It was there that I learned that my eldest sister, the only member of my family who was not gassed on arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau had survived the Holocaust, only to die shortly after liberation. The Nazis murdered her too.

It was the British who gave me a second chance at life. The government allowed 1,000 survivors to come and live in this great country. They could only find 732 of us, and we became known as ‘The Boys’. I married, built a family, and created a new life. My children should have had grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. They didn’t – but they were surrounded by my fellow survivors, who acted as surrogates.

The Nazis murdered my entire family. Simply because we were Jewish. I am the only one left to mourn for them.

I am 91 years old. I have spent many years sharing my story through the Holocaust Educational Trust. Thanks to them, many know what happened. But I will not live forever. Today, on Holocaust Memorial Day, and for every year from now on, I ask you to remember my family – my father Martin, who was a Rabbi.

My mother, Rosa, who went to her death with my brothers Herman, Moshe, and Abram and my sisters Frimid, Sheindel, and Sara, and my sister Gitta who died alone, who was liberated but never got to experience freedom.

I ask you to remember what the Nazis took from me without a single moment of thought and to learn the horrible and abhorrent lessons of history in order to build a future we can all be proud of, free from the hate, racism, and prejudice that dominated my childhood.

‏Source inews.co.uk