After Auschwitz: A story of heartbreak and survival by the stepsister of Anne Frank (Extraordinary Lives, Extraordinary Stories of World War Two Book 1)

by Eva Schloss

Hitler was like a poor boy with his face pressed up against the window of the sweet shop, while inside exclusive Vienna society and intelligentsia ignored him.

‘We hate wearing this badge but we are still proud of being Jewish. The Nazis might think that this is a badge of shame – but we can hold our heads up and know that it is a badge of honour.’

My experiences revealed that people have a unique capacity for cruelty, brutality and sheer indifference to human suffering. It is easy to say that good and evil exist within each of us but I have seen the unedifying reality of that at close hand, and it has led me to a lifetime of wondering about the human soul.

More Jews, the vast majority of them Hungarian, had been murdered in two short months at Birkenau than in the previous two years. An average of 3,300 people had been transported every day, rising to 4,300 on some days – and three quarters of those people were sent straight to the gas chambers.

What is certain is that winning the war and maintaining a strong anti-immigration policy were more important priorities for the Allies than helping the Jews.