Holocaust survivor who was unable to tell story for 50 years is among those recognised

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

﻿For 50 years, Ruzena Levy could not speak of the horrors she endured and witnessed in the Nazi death camps.

On arriving at Auschwitz at the age of 13, she was ordered to turn left; her mother, clutching her youngest child in her arms, was told to go to the right. “Straight to the gas chamber. I never saw her again.”

Miraculously, Levy and her baby brother survived not just Auschwitz, but a death march and finally Bergen-Belsen. “We were crawling on our knees, starved of food, water and humanity. Half-dead people.”

On 15 April 1945, when British forces liberated Bergen-Belsen, they found about 60,000 emaciated people, many suffering from typhus and dysentery, and thousands of unburied bodies.

Levy’s parents, grandparents on both sides, three siblings, aunts, uncles and great-grandfather were all dead. Although she remembered “every detail” of the camps, she kept it within her for decades.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ruzena, back row, third from right, with her family in Bhutz in what was then Czechoslovakia, before she was taken to Auschwitz. Photograph: Handout

Eventually, she was able to speak out. And today, Levy – now 89 – and six other survivors of the darkest years of the 20th century have been awarded the British Empire Medal in the Queen’s birthday honours for their services to Holocaust education and awareness.

The seven “inspirational individuals” had “demonstrated extraordinary personal resilience and commitment in retelling their painful story for the purpose of championing tolerance and diversity. Their work plays a vital role in ensuring future generations continue to learn from the past,” said a spokesperson for the Cabinet Office, which administers the honours list.

Walter Kammerling, 95, Ernest Simon, 89, Gabriele Keenaghan, 92, and Ann and Bob Kirk, aged 90 and 94, all came to Britain on the Kindertransport from Austria and Germany in the aftermath of Kristallnacht – “a romantic word for a dirty pogrom”, according to Kammerling. George Hans Vulkan, 89, arrived in the UK as a nine-year-old after fleeing Vienna with his family after Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Walter Kammerling. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

Between them, the seven recipients have told their stories to tens of thousands of schoolchildren in recent decades.

“We know their testimonies have a far-reaching impact,” said Karen Pollock of the Holocaust Education Trust. “Their determination to relive the most difficult period of their lives in order for future generations to know where hate can ultimately lead is an inspiration to us all.

“Against a backdrop of rising antisemitism, Holocaust denial and hate, we pledge to increase our efforts to ensure that this period of history is taught about and known.”

All Holocaust survivors who had not yet been recognised for their efforts “should be, while we still can”, she added.

Levy told the Guardian she had needed therapy before she had been able to talk about her experiences. “Now I speak to children who are the age I was when I went to Auschwitz. I try to tell them the inhumanity of it all, and how they must learn to love their neighbours, the child next to them, not abuse them.”

She had “never dreamed” of being honoured, she said. “I’m very humbled and very grateful.”

Kammerling wondered whether he was “really worthy” of the honour, saying: “I don’t feel so very special.”