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- Arek was liberated by the Russian army on 8 May 1945. He remembers being given rice pudding to eat. On 12 August 1945, Arek was transferred to Prague and flown to Britain as part of a broader initiative to help Europe’s child survivors. A group of 300 boys and girls were taken to Windermere in the Lake District to recuperate and learn English.
holocaustcentrenorth.org.uk/stories/arek-hersh/
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In this video, Arek and his wife Jean tell the story of Arek's escape from the mass genocide of millions of Jews during World War Two. The story begins with Arek's arrival at Auschwitz from a Jewish ghetto named Lodz and the horrific selection process he witnessed.
As the war approached its conclusion and Germany was surrounded by the Allies, Hersh and the other Jews at Auschwitz were transported across the country. He was eventually liberated at Theresienstadt (Terezin, Czechoslovakia) on 8 May 1945 by the Soviet Army. There were 5,000 Jews in his town but only 40 of them came out alive.
Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. Arek was born and brought up in Poland, the son of a boot-maker for the army.
Arek began his march just 9 days before Auschwitz was liberated on the 27 th of January 1945. They were marched through freezing conditions, with no food or rest. Those who lagged behind were shot.
Arek quickly ran to the line with the men, recognising early that he had a better chance of survival. The women and children were sent straight to the gas chambers and murdered on arrival.
Arek survived his time in two ghettos and several Concentration Camps, before being liberated at age 16. Almost all of his family were murdered. Arek now shares his testimony and does everything he can to counter assertions that the Holocaust was just a ‘detail of history’.
