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| Holocaust: 'I still don't know why I survived. Perhaps it was to talk to you' | Holocaust: 'I still don't know why I survived. Perhaps it was to talk to you' |
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| I first met Iby Knill last year when I took my daughter to hear her speak about Nazi persecution in a church hall in Leeds. I was immediately transported back to my childhood listening to similar stories in our living room from Jewish refugees with whom we shared our lives in a curious part of Glasgow during the 1960s. | I first met Iby Knill last year when I took my daughter to hear her speak about Nazi persecution in a church hall in Leeds. I was immediately transported back to my childhood listening to similar stories in our living room from Jewish refugees with whom we shared our lives in a curious part of Glasgow during the 1960s. |
| All had arrived in this frontier town as refugees thankful to have escaped with their lives, or whisked away by the Kinder Transport or repatriated to these shores and - just like Knill - had survived. I grew up hearing conversation switch from English to French, German, or sometimes Yiddish or Russian. Our lives resonated with echoes of a lost world of European Jewish society before fascism. | All had arrived in this frontier town as refugees thankful to have escaped with their lives, or whisked away by the Kinder Transport or repatriated to these shores and - just like Knill - had survived. I grew up hearing conversation switch from English to French, German, or sometimes Yiddish or Russian. Our lives resonated with echoes of a lost world of European Jewish society before fascism. |
| Tears splashed onto my daughter's hands as she listened to Iby's e sweetly accented voice, telling her: "If you have a culture of us and them, you are creating problems. It's easier to instigate fear and hatred than goodwill and friendship". With this meeting, my duty to my community is fulfilled. Survivors' memories, my memory of the telling of the Holocaust, will not be forgotten. Like me, my daughter had to know. | Tears splashed onto my daughter's hands as she listened to Iby's e sweetly accented voice, telling her: "If you have a culture of us and them, you are creating problems. It's easier to instigate fear and hatred than goodwill and friendship". With this meeting, my duty to my community is fulfilled. Survivors' memories, my memory of the telling of the Holocaust, will not be forgotten. Like me, my daughter had to know. |
| On 27 January 1945, Soviet troops entered Auschwitz to liberate several thousand prisoners, including 180 children who were suffering from acute frostbite. The only reason they had survived at all was because the children were required for Josef Mengele's genetic programme. Three thousand twin children entered Auschwitz; fewer than 200 lived to tell of its horrors. | |
| The skeletons huddled together in the cold were mostly the ill and dying as all those who could walk had been marched by the Nazis to a nearby city. The American Holocaust Archive saved Fritzie Weiss Fritzshall's description of her journey saying: "The streets were literally covered with bodies as we marched. We would pass body after body, people were dropping dead from hunger from disease, from dysentery because they did not have the strength or because they gave up" In total, 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz, and at least 1.1 million were murdered. | |
| Iby Knill survived. | Iby Knill survived. |
| To this day she does not know why. "Perhaps I survived to bear witness, to talk to you, to build bridges between people . What have I learned? What do I know? I know that human cruelty knows no bounds". | To this day she does not know why. "Perhaps I survived to bear witness, to talk to you, to build bridges between people . What have I learned? What do I know? I know that human cruelty knows no bounds". |
| As a member of the Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association based in Leeds, Knill makes many public appearances talking about her experiences. There are so many events around Holocaust Memorial Day and fewer and fewer survivors to give firsthand accounts. | As a member of the Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association based in Leeds, Knill makes many public appearances talking about her experiences. There are so many events around Holocaust Memorial Day and fewer and fewer survivors to give firsthand accounts. |
| 27 January is always a difficult, sad day, Knill says. "It should be a time when people remember that there is no limit to the cruelty that one person can inflict upon another. One has to be very much aware of that. One has to learn to understand and respect that. We have to build bridges to have peace." | 27 January is always a difficult, sad day, Knill says. "It should be a time when people remember that there is no limit to the cruelty that one person can inflict upon another. One has to be very much aware of that. One has to learn to understand and respect that. We have to build bridges to have peace." |
| Genocide is not limited to the experience of the Jews, Roma or other marginalised groups during the second world war. Knill is acutely aware that people "have to realise that genocide is taking place all over the world - the recent events in Algeria, the way things are going in Syria – it's frightening". | Genocide is not limited to the experience of the Jews, Roma or other marginalised groups during the second world war. Knill is acutely aware that people "have to realise that genocide is taking place all over the world - the recent events in Algeria, the way things are going in Syria – it's frightening". |
| Knill never wants to be on her own on 27 January because "whether I like it or not it brings back memories". This year her son, who lives in Norway, is arriving to be with her and attend an event in Leeds. | Knill never wants to be on her own on 27 January because "whether I like it or not it brings back memories". This year her son, who lives in Norway, is arriving to be with her and attend an event in Leeds. |
| Woman Without a Number was written after the death of her husband. For 50 years, Knill lived the life of an army officer's wife. She made his family and its history her own. Only after his death, with her children left home, did Iby feel the need – and the duty – to write her own history. | Woman Without a Number was written after the death of her husband. For 50 years, Knill lived the life of an army officer's wife. She made his family and its history her own. Only after his death, with her children left home, did Iby feel the need – and the duty – to write her own history. |
| The BBC called the book "an inspirational story of Holocaust survival" and took Knill back to Auschwitz for a documentary. The book was written for her grandchildren, who knew nothing of their grandmother's early life. Knill realised that she had an opportunity to make people realise how invidious and destructive the spread of intolerance and of prejudice of an ethnic group can be, not only on the recipient but also on the instigator. | The BBC called the book "an inspirational story of Holocaust survival" and took Knill back to Auschwitz for a documentary. The book was written for her grandchildren, who knew nothing of their grandmother's early life. Knill realised that she had an opportunity to make people realise how invidious and destructive the spread of intolerance and of prejudice of an ethnic group can be, not only on the recipient but also on the instigator. |
| "In a nursery, children will play with each other regardless of what colour," she said. "Why can't this instinctive friendship stay? Why do people begin to differentiate because they are a different colour, or different ethnicity or religion? Why cant this kind of childhood innocence carry through? Why not? We can teach our young people that prejudice is wrong, destructive to themselves. Hatred destroys the people who are feeling it just as much. It destroys them too." | "In a nursery, children will play with each other regardless of what colour," she said. "Why can't this instinctive friendship stay? Why do people begin to differentiate because they are a different colour, or different ethnicity or religion? Why cant this kind of childhood innocence carry through? Why not? We can teach our young people that prejudice is wrong, destructive to themselves. Hatred destroys the people who are feeling it just as much. It destroys them too." |
| Like the wide-eyed tots who walked through the snow to meet the Russian army, I was a child when silence fell in our living room and I asked: why do you have numbers on your arm? Although many years have passed since the Russians stared in disbelief at the little prisoners of Auschwitz, the question remains, and we must never stop asking why. | Like the wide-eyed tots who walked through the snow to meet the Russian army, I was a child when silence fell in our living room and I asked: why do you have numbers on your arm? Although many years have passed since the Russians stared in disbelief at the little prisoners of Auschwitz, the question remains, and we must never stop asking why. |
| Ann Czernik is a freelance journalist specialising in activism in the north of England | Ann Czernik is a freelance journalist specialising in activism in the north of England |