Susan Pollack, MBE, recalls her time in Auschwitz

On the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Susan Pollack, MBE, 89, recalls her time there (27 January 1945)

I was brought up in Felsögöd, a small village (roughly 3,000 people) 45 minutes by train from Budapest. My father had a business selling wood and coal, and there were about 16 Jewish families – we were well integrated in the community.

But in 1938, when I was eight, my brother Laci [10] was beaten up leaving a football match. Thugs attacked him, saying, ‘Jews, get out!’ We also started getting government restrictions as the Hungarian fascist parties emerged. We had our citizenship revoked, and my father had to close his business. Finally, he was asked to come to a meeting. I watched him being brutally beaten up, herded on to a lorry – and I never saw him again.

Then it was our turn to be transported, ‘resettled’: that was the beginning of the end. In 1944, when I was 14, my mum, brother and I were taken to a ghetto in Vác, and then on to an internment camp closer to Budapest. After that, we walked to a waiting cattle train, with straw on the floor. It was a long journey [to Auschwitz], about 10 days. We were desperate for water, but we didn’t get much, so people began to die.

Then the doors opened and some fresh air came in, but the guard’s aggression hit us immediately. Someone whispered, ‘Don’t say that you’re younger than 15,’ so when the Nazi came over, I said, ‘I’m 15-and-a-half.’

My mum, who was in her 50s, was sent to the gas chamber, along with other mothers and children. I was taken with the other girls, my head was shaved and disinfectant poured over my body. I was tall enough to be safe for a while: all that mattered was our height and physique – they were using us for manual labour. A high-ranking official, I think it was Dr Mengele [the infamous Nazi ‘Angel of Death’], looked at our bodies. I had to march in front of him, stand straight and look reasonably compos mentis.

At the beginning, we prisoners played a little game; we remembered our home life. But as the starvation took its toll on us, we couldn’t do that any more.

In winter 1944, the allied forces were coming, so we had to start walking, in snow and ice, to a place of death – the camp Bergen-belsen. I was dying, like most of us there, when I heard some shouting: ‘We’re free.’ I crawled out from my barrack.

An English soldier gently picked me up, put me in an ambulance and took me, with others, to a makeshift hospital.

When liberation came, I was still 14. I was fearful. Where do I go? Who is going to look after me? Eventually, I went to Canada and married, aged 18, Abraham Pollack, another Holocaust survivor. We had our children young, and having my own family gave me purpose.

My brother survived. He had been a Sonderkommando [a prisoner forced to help with the disposal of gas-chamber victims] and so suffered from huge mental issues. I hardly recognised him, when I saw him again: it had been 20 years.

Jews have been persecuted for so long, it somehow seems to be embedded. It’s one of the reasons I continue talking [about the Holocaust]. I try to instil in my listeners that we’re all together, and we have to protect one another. What took place – only yesterday in my mind – will never, ever happen again. Living in Britain, for me, is a great privilege and I’ve made important contributions to the country. At my age, I realise life is short. We’ve got to be accountable for what we do and help one another. —Interview by Anna Clarke Learn about the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust at het.org.uk

Hungarian Jews arriving at Auschwitzbirkenau, June 1944; Susan as a young girl, before she was taken to the camp