'If you lost weight, you were sent to the gas chamber': Auschwitz ordeal of girl, 13, separated from family
'If you lost weight, you were sent to the gas chamber': Auschwitz ordeal of girl, 13, separated from family
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An Auschwitz survivor who was just 13 when she arrived at the concentration camp says the recent rise in antisemitism is driven by "ignorance". Separated from her mother as she passed through the gates, Susan Pollack told Nazi guards she was 15 so they would keep her alive.
"Somebody whispered to me, your mother will be gassed. How could I respond? I was just hopeless.". Susan, now 94, shared her story with Sky News presenter Sarah-Jane Mee ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day. Born Zsuzsanna Blau in 1930 in Hungary, Susan became aware of antisemitism around her from a young age. Her uncle was murdered by fascists. His attacker was sentenced to just two years in prison.
After Germany invaded Hungary in 1944, the Nazis and their Hungarian collaborators organised the deportation of Hungarian Jews, under the supervision of high-ranking SS officer Adolf Eichmann. In May that year, Susan and her family were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland by cattle truck. In less than two months, almost all of Hungary's Jewish population, some 825,000, was deported.
Auschwitz survivor: 'You worked until you could work no more - then you went to the chimney'. Auschwitz Remembered: Survivors mark liberation from former Nazi concentration camp 80 years ago. 'My mother sacrificed herself for me': Escape from the train of death.
