Arek was born in Sieradz, Poland, in 1928. One of five children, he was just 11 years old when he was taken from the Lodz Ghetto to Otoschno, near Poznan in Western Poland. They were marched through freezing conditions, with no food or rest. Those who lagged behind were shot. When they reached a Katowice, Poland, they were put into goods wagons and began the journey to Buchenwald concentration camp. The journey lasted several days, and they were given no food. Arek and his friend had managed to steal a bag of semolina from Auschwitz, which staved off some of the hunger. In August 1945 the first children, who were mainly Polish and many of whom were still in camps as they had nowhere to go, were transported in RAF planes that had delivered their cargo and were on their way home. Ike finally settled in Manchester, where he established a successful career as a jeweller and diamond mounter. In July 1944, a 20-year-old Ms Ebert and her family - mother and five siblings - were transported to Auschwitz.

The award-winning film entitled Arek documented his return, as an adult, to the places of his childhood “where murder was a way of life” and the audience watched on as they saw Arek revisit the streets of the notorious Lodz ghetto and the infamous extermination camp Auschwitz II known as Auschwitz-Birkenau. In 1944, Mr Shipper and his grandmother, whom he was brought up by, were taken to a train station and transported to Auschwitz. Mrs Lasker-Wallfisch and her sister Renate were conscripted to work at a paper factory, but were arrested and imprisoned for helping forge documents for French prisoners of war. However Ms Levy, then 14, and her brother Chaskie, 16, were spared. She was among the children overseen by Dr Josef Mengele, but he gestured she too should be killed. in 1944 the Germans decided to liquidate the Lodz ghetto because the Russian army was getting closer. The remaining population was put on a goods train for the two-day journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The 185 children from the orphanage were among them. When they arrived at Auschwitz, Dr Mengele selected people to work and people to go straight to their deaths. Arek didn’t know what was happening, but he could tell that the fitter, healthier people were on the right so took advantage of a disturbance to run across to that side.

That brave move saved his life. The people in the left line were led to the gas chambers. If he had not escaped to the left-hand line, he would faced the haunting death walk along this route. Speaking to Kate in 2021, he said: 'So after a few days we came to the station, I said to my grandmother "I can’t see any trains". Arek came to Britain as one of the “Windermere Boys”, rehabilitating in the Lake District, before settling first in Liverpool and later in Leeds. Arek did not speak about his experiences until the publication of his book, ‘A Detail of History’ in 1995, and since then has become one of the UK’s most prominent Holocaust education campaigners, touring schools and universities across the country to speak with younger generations about the horrors of the Holocaust. He has also worked closely with the National Holocaust Centre and Museum and other organisations to preserve the testimony of survivors, and seen his story featured in multiple TV documentaries. Auschwitz survivor Arek Hersh MBE: "I wanted to live. I wanted to survive." ". LeftLion . Retrieved 6 January 2020. It was as if we had been taken to another world…A friendly world, a beautiful world. After everything we’d been through, we could not believe it.”

In January 1945 Arek was among the thousands of men and women from Auschwitz forced onto a death march towards Germany. They marched for days until they eventually reached the large town of Katowice, where they were put into goods wagons. The journey in those wagons, destination unknown, lasted for several days without food. The Windermere programme is not as well known as the Kindertransport initiative, which moved nearly 10,000 mostly Jewish children from Nazi-occupied territories to Britain between 1938 and 1939. At that time, some British politicians, including former prime minister Lord Baldwin, argued that it was a humanitarian duty. “I have to ask you to come to the aid of the victims, not of any catastrophe in the natural world, not of an earthquake,” he said, “but of an explosion of man’s inhumanity to man.” Arek was not yet 16 when he was liberated and had witnessed some of the worst horrors in human history. The only remaining member of Arek’s family was his older sister, Mania, all of the others had been murdered in the Holocaust. Arek later moved to Britain with other children who had survived, where he led a happy life.He remembers having to deal with the death that surrounded him: “You could see the bodies on each train. We just threw them off and buried them.” Mr Hersh survived the Lodz ghetto, forced labour at Auschwitz-Birkenau, a death march to Buchenwald and finally Theresienstadt (pictured in 2022) Escaping death at Auschwitz – Arek Hersh tells his story". University of Huddersfield . Retrieved 6 January 2020. Arek told how he instinctively saved his own life at Auschwitz by dashing from a line of old people, women and children selected for gassing, to a line of male adults and young men selected for work. The depictions of Lily Ebert, 98, Arek Hersh, 93, Helen Aronson, 95, Manfred Goldberg, 91, Rachel Levy, 91, Zigi Shipper, 92, and Anita Lasker Wallfisch, 95, have gone on display at Edinburgh's Holyroodhouse.

He takes up the story: "I came here with 185 children from an orphanage. We arrived by train in Birkenau. Fascist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, was able to mobilise 10,000 supporters when he staged a rally in London in 2018. In February this year 3,000 of Robinson’s street thugs rallied outside the BBC’s studios in Salford in Greater Manchester to protest against a Panorama TV investigative documentary exposing Robinson’s racism, fascism, violence and criminality. Artist Peter Kuhfeld with Ms Laskar-Wallfisch when her painting was unveiled at the Queen's Gallery in January Arek was born in 1928 in Sieradz, Poland. He was 1 of 5 children and has happy memories of his childhood before the Nazi invasion, playing in the nearby forests and skating on the frozen rivers in the winters. Arek’s family were Orthodox Jews and religion was a particularly important part of their lives. A spokesperson for Westminster council, whose planning committee previously voted against the scheme, said: “We await the details of any new scheme. Westminster city council has always been supportive of the principle of a Holocaust memorial centre in central London.”

Last April, the Leeds resident Iby Knill, who was freed from Auschwitz in 1945, died at 98. Freddy Knoller, who was liberated from Bergen Belsen, died a year ago at 100. Harry Bibring, whose mother was murdered in Sobibor extermination camp, arrived in the UK on the Kindertransport but died aged 93 in 2019, just days after telling Sky News: “I don’t know whether I’ll live to see [the memorial] … and I hope nothing goes wrong so I can get a glance before I go.” Arek was born in Sieradz, Poland and at the age of 11 following Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland, he was taken to his first concentration camp. The camp started out with 2,500 men – 18 months later only 11 were alive. Jones, Mari (31 January 2017). "Meet the holocaust survivor who lost 81 members of his family". northwales . Retrieved 6 January 2020. Six million Jewish men, women and children were slaughtered in Nazi Germany's network of death and concentration camps between 1941 and 1945. She hid among kitchen workers and eventually was forced to walk 21 days from Poland to Bergen-Belsen.

He hopes that by doing this he can help young people to build a better world. Arek later discovered that only 40 people from his home town survived the war.We'd hide it under the mattress and the people who looked after our rooms kept finding mouldy bread. We thought the food might suddenly stop.'