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‘I escaped death seven times. I don’t know why I survived’

A project by Claims Conference features the harrowing testimonies of 80 Auschwitz survivors on the anniversary of the camp’s liberation

January 26, 2025 13:00
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Bronia Brandman lights a Menorah candle during a Chanukah reception hosted by US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden in Washington, DC in 2022. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
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To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Holocaust’s largest and deadliest concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, has launched “I Survived Auschwitz: Remember This”, a digital campaign highlighting the stories of 80 Holocaust survivors. The JC spoke to three of them.

Rachel Levy, 95, was born in Czechoslovakia. She was marched from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen where she remained until the camp was liberated by the British army in1945. After the war, she was sent to Millisle in Northern Ireland before settling in London.

Rachel Levy, centre, with other children at the farm in Millisle, Northern Ireland, where she stayed temporarily after the war. (Photo: Levy family)[Missing Credit]

I wish I knew how I survived. Nobody can answer that.