Life after Auschwitz
This episode was first broadcast on 27 January 2020 to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
On 27 January 1945, Soviet soldiers entered the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp in south-west Poland. The site had been evacuated by the Nazis just days earlier. Thus ended the largest mass murder in a single location in human history.
Precise numbers are still debated but, according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the German SS systematically killed at least 960,000 of the 1.1 million to 1.3 million Jews sent to the camp. Other victims included approximately 74,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war and at least 10,000 from other nationalities. More people died at Auschwitz than at any other Nazi concentration camp.
Susan Pollack and Ivor Perl were children when they were transported to the camp, two of an ever-decreasing number of survivors able to provide firsthand testimony of what happened to them. They speak to Anushka Asthana about their time at Auschwitz, and how they rebuilt their lives afterwards.
With thanks to Arthur Cary. His documentary The Last Survivors features Susan and Ivor.
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