Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
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PRINCE Charles yesterday urged world leaders never to let the Holocaust become “simply a fact of history”, saying hatred and intolerance “still lurk in the human heart”.
Survivors of the Second World War horror relayed their ordeals to an emotional Prince during his first official visit to Israel.
He was attending the World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem – the country’s memorial to the six million victims – where nearly 50 world leaders marked the 75th anniversary of the Russian liberation of Auschwitz-birkenau.
When she was 10, Marta Wise was sent to the concentration camp where she was subjected to barbaric experiments by notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.
Born in Czechoslovakia, she and her older sister were sent by their parents to live with a non-jewish family and pretend they were orphaned refugees.
But in October 1944 they were betrayed to the Nazis, who offered rewards to anyone who reported Jews. Now 85, Mrs Wise told how her blood was taken as she was injected with unknown substances in a constant struggle to survive.
In a 25-minute chat with the heir, she told how 27 armed soldiers swooped on the sisters. She said: “From there we were sent to Auschwitz-birkenau and into Mengele’s experimental barracks. By a miracle we survived. “It was hell on earth. Mengele was a particular devil. Our blood was taken. Jewish blood was no good, but it was good enough to take for the German army.
“He used to inject us with things. We had no idea what they were. You could be in absolute agony. He was a monster.”
Speaking of the Prince, she said: “He was very interested in how it was in Auschwitz and how we managed to survive. He was very sympathetic. He came across as genuinely interested.”
After the war she moved to Australia to become a Holocaust historian and started a family before moving to Israel in 1998.
The Prince of Wales appeared moved as he listened to George Shefi, who came to England before the war on the Kindertransport which rescued Jewish children from Nazi Germany. Mr Shefi, 88,