Few truly know how happiness and hope can turn to despair, desperation and death than Susan Pollack.
Born Zsuzsanna Blau in Felsögöd, Hungary, in 1930, she lived peacefully with her mother, father, and brother Laci, and had a large extended family whom she regularly spent time with.
But she became aware of rabid antisemitism from a young age and by the time she was a teenager Susan was sent to Auschwitz and more than 50 members of her family – including her mother and father – were executed during the Holocaust.
Speaking about shuffling through the gates of hell Susan, 94, told the Express: “I did not exist after entering Auschwitz. I was told that my mum was gassed, how do you feel that? I was totally oblivious to what [the officer] was talking about.
“Say that you are 15 years old, I wasn’t yet. I just nodded, I didn’t have a voice anymore.
“None of us could understand anything. None of us can understand why, every morning we appeared in front of [Angel of Death] Dr Mengele, naked. I supposed I wasn’t losing weight so rapidly. I was able to do some work. I was told to stand there, people who lost weight rapidly were sent to the gas chamber.
“You don’t think you live in a world which does those things.
“It is ignorance, not really accepting the reality of the hate against us, defenceless children or even making any sense of what the Holocaust was about. All of us did what we were told. We were told to do it if we wanted to live.”
Susan added: “I was used for a short while for work. They shaved my hair and took my clothes.
“I became speechless, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t talk. I became numb.
“Inspection took place every day so he could inspect our naked bodies. Could we think, no. Were we living in fear? Always.”
Susan was just eight when her uncle was murdered by fascists with his attacker sentenced to two years imprisonment, but released early only to return to live opposite Susan’s widowed aunt.
Laci, a bright and academic student, hoped to study at university, but a law restricting the number of Jewish students entering higher education meant he was effectively banned.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, antisemitism was open and rife with vile anti-Jewish graffiti appearing on the streets and antisemitic propaganda pumped from the radio. Physical attacks on Jews were also common, and Laci was badly beaten.
After the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944 fathers, along with Susan’s, were summoned to a meeting to discuss the welfare of their families. But when they arrived they were herded into waiting lorries and taken to a concentration camp. She never saw him again and still is unsure whether he died during internment or was deported elsewhere.
Under the supervision of notorious SS officer Adolf Eichmann, the Nazis and their Hungarian collaborators organised the mass deportation of Hungarian Jews. Within less than two months from mid-May 1944, almost all were deported, mostly to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Susan, Laci and their mother were sent to a ghetto in Vác and from there to an internment camp. In late May 1944, they were dispatched by cattle truck to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Men and women were immediately segregated, and Susan was also separated from her mother who was sent to join a group of elderly prisoners. She soon learned she had been sent directly to the gas chambers.
Frightened Susan was put to work and remained in the camp for around 10 weeks before being sent to Guben in Germany to work as a slave labourer in an armaments factory. With the Allies advancing, prisoners were forced on a death march to Bergen-Belsen. Finally, on April 15, 1945, she was liberated by the British Army. After she was hospitalised for tuberculosis, typhoid and severe malnutrition, she was sent to Sweden to recover.
Susan later discovered Laci was the only member of her family who survived. More than 50 of her relatives had been murdered during the Holocaust.
Laci continued to live in their parents’ house, but Susan was unable to return to Hungary to visit him for a further 20 years after the end of the war.
During his time at Auschwitz-Birkenau he had been forced to work in the Sonderkommando, moving bodies from the gas chamber to the ovens. He suffered from mental health problems that haunted him until his death in 1995.
After the war, Susan lived in Sweden before moving to Canada, where she met and married fellow survivor Abraham, who was incarcerated in Auschwitz and Dachau.
Widowed, she now lives in London and has three children and six grandchildren, sharing her testimony in schools and colleges across Britain through the Holocaust Educational Trust.
She said: “Helping others has got a healing power. We believe in kindness, in helpfulness [and] if you help yourself, it helps you feel strong. I had no idea about the future but I was encouraging others.”
