27 January 2025, 08:11 | Updated: 27 January 2025, 08:18

By Karen Pollock

80 years ago Soviet soldiers opened the gates of a place that soon became synonymous with evil – Auschwitz-Birkenau.

It is hard to imagine the scenes they stumbled upon. The camp had been a central point for the Jews of Europe to be sent – in cattle trucks, with barely any food or sanitation – from ghettos across the continent. On arrival, they stumbled out of the trucks stood on train tracks, were sorted into columns by Nazi doctors. Those who were too old, too young or too weak to work, were sent one way. Those who were deemed fit to work were sent another.

This is the moment that many parted from their loved ones forever.

Renee Salt, who was sent from the Lodz Ghetto to Auschwitz-Birkenau still remembers seeing her father jump down from the train. She describes how he disappeared into the crowd ‘as if into thin air, without a kiss or a goodbye.’ She was 15 years old

Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate, talked about seeing his mother and sister walk towards the gas chamber; "Tzipora held my mother’s hand, I saw them disappear in the........

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