Boy who lived to tell of Auschwitz

It happened exactly 63 years ago but Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp survivor Gabor Hirsch recalled the details as effortlessly as if it had been yesterday.

"The death marches started on January 18," the 78-year-old explains. "They told us that those who were not strong enough could remain. I was quite weak and decided to stay.

"The guards left two days later but returned on January 24 to eliminate signs of the crematorium and to collect the rest of us. There was no roll call and I hid under some straw. Those who went with them were shot.

"Three days after that we were liberated by the Soviet army. I was one of the few who survived. You had to be lucky to do that. You could not survive by being clever or by being nice. You just needed good fortune.

"We suffered because of the lack of hygiene. There was no privacy and very little food. We starved and were in constant fear of being selected for execution. You cannot put into words what that felt like – especially for a young boy separated from his parents."

Gabor had just celebrated his 15th birthday and weighed under 27kg – just over four stone – when freed from the camp. He had been held for seven months after being captured and transported to Poland in June 1944 as the fate of persecuted Jews in his native Hungary deteriorated rapidly following the Nazis occupation of the country.

Many years later he found a photograph that he believes shows him swathed in blankets shortly after taking those first faltering steps to freedom. The astonishing picture – discovered during research of the subject – will be among those shown when he relives the ordeal tonight in the annual Holocaust Memorial Day lecture at the University of Wolverhampton.

Only child Gabor spent months in German and Soviet camps after being released from Auschwitz before being reunited with his father and returning to school in Bekescsaba in south-east Hungary. "You just had to get on with life," he explains. His mother had perished in another Polish camp.

The electrical engineer fled to Austria during the 1956 Hungarian uprising and later moved to Switzerland where he married and had two sons, now aged 35 and 38. He became a Swiss citizen in 1972 and lives on the outskirts of Zurich.

Gabor – on his first visit to Wolverhampton – told the Express & Star: "Everybody has a different strategy for dealing with the past. Some of my friends had their concentration camp tattoo removed. I did not. What had happened was not my fault. I felt no shame and thought it was an important part of my past.

"During my professional life I had less time to dwell on what had happened. I was more interested in the present and the future, but I read books and later wanted to find out more about the concentration camp.

"I went to the library and studied archives. I set up a group of survivors in Switzerland and then in 1990 one of my sons asked to visit Auschwitz and I decided that it would be easier if I went with him.

"I have been eight times since. I spent six weeks there in 2000 working as a volunteer and returned for the 50 and 60-year commemorations of the camp. I have lots of questions and too few answers.

"It is a bit like having bits of puzzle but not being able to see the whole picture. I do not believe that I will ever be able to view it in full but I must try – that is why I started the survivors' group. I want to hear their experiences in the hope that it would help me know exactly what happened.

"People say that it is difficult for people who did not experience the concentration camps to understand what it was like – well, it can be equally difficult for those who were there. Certain things are blotted out or forgotten with the passage of time. It was very emotional when I first talked about my experiences at the camp but I am happy to do it again occasionally."

Gabor speaks fluently about his experiences until asked about his feelings for the people who made him – and millions of other Jews – suffer so terribly.

He pauses for several seconds while searching for the right words. Then he smiles sadly and says simply: "I don't like them."

He continues: "I have no problem with today's generation. I only have problems if I meet people of my age but there are not that many of those still alive. I cannot forget, but can I forgive? Who shall I forgive?

"Even if I cannot actively forgive, I do not take revenge. I accept the past. I can live with it when others who endured similar experiences could not. Some committed suicide. I hope my lecture tonight will show my audience something of the consequences of the Holocaust so that they can help ensure that nothing like it ever happens again."

Gabor was invited to give the address after a chance meeting via the internet with University of Wolverhampton religious studies and history lecturer Deidre Burke. They were both using the same research site and got into cyber conversation.

Since then he has forged increasingly close links with the university and its students and these culminate in tonight's lecture.

Dieter Steinert, Professor of Modern European History and Migration Studies at the university says: "The response has been overwhelming. You can read all the history books you like, but nothing compares with getting the facts first hand."

* Gabor was among 3,118 prisoners packed onto a train that took him from his home town to the extermination camp in June 1944 just days after the D-Day landings in France. He lost touch with his mother soon afterwards and later learned that she was murdered on December 18, 1944. Like many of the young prisoners he was sent to the so-called Gypsy camp at Auschwitz where most of those held were murdered in a mass slaughter two months later. He was then moved to work at Camp 3 which was called Monowitz and from which doctors regularly selected the weakest for the gas chambers.

Tonight will be the first time that Gabor has spoken to an audience in England about his experiences. All the tickets for the free talk have already been allocated and there is a waiting list.