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Evil guards could hardly believe their eyes as the cattle truck doors were pulled open at Auschwitz death camp.

Inside the train carriage among the throng of exhausted and terrified Jews was a family of seven immaculately dressed dwarfs.

The two brothers and five perfectly made-up sisters, who looked like painted dolls, were each no taller than a young child and had to be lifted from the train.

They were a song and dance group called the Lilliput Troupe and one brother started handing out autographed business cards.

He had no idea that within hours 3,100 of the 3,500 passengers would be killed in the concentration camp’s gas chambers.

The Ovitz family suffered a different fate, falling into the clutches of Hitler’s vile henchman, Dr Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death for his sick ­experiments without anaesthetic on people, including children.

Now the Ovitzes’ amazing tale of torture and survival is the subject of Giants: The Dwarfs of Auschwitz, a book out tomorrow and of an ITV documentary ­presented by Harry Potter star Warwick Davis to be screened next month.

The Lilliputs won fame and fortune in the 1930s touring eastern Europe, even performing for the king of Romania.

But their riches could not save them from Hitler’s plan to ­exterminate all Jews and on May 19, 1944, they arrived at the camp.

The youngest dwarf Perla, then 23, recalled being curious about flames and smoke billowing from two chimneys over a building the passengers were marching to.

Initially she thought it might be a bakery until a Jew wearing a striped uniform told her the horrific truth about bodies being burned in the ovens.

(Image: Getty Images)

Perla remembered many years later: “Each flame looked like a human being, flying up and ­dissolving in the air. We went numb – if this was a graveyard what was a doctor doing here?”

The dwarfs and 15 other family members and friends were only saved by sadistic Mengele’s order to spare dwarfs for his crude ­experiments. He was hell-bent on proving that Aryans were the super race.

But survival came at a terrible price as the Lilliputs became one of the doctor’s favourite projects.

The dwarfs had to live on a starvation soup diet and were put through a barrage of tests.

Mengele would take them into his lab individually for repetitive tests that lasted weeks and dozens of X-rays.

Perla said: “The amount of blood they took was enormous and, being feeble from hunger, we often fainted. That didn’t stop Mengele. He had us lie down and when we came to our senses they resumed siphoning our blood.

“They punctured us carelessly and blood spurted. We often felt nauseous and vomited a lot. Back at the barrack, we’d slump on the wooden bunks but before we had time to recover, we’d be summoned for a new cycle.”

Psychiatrists bombarded the dwarfs with questions to test their intelligence, doctors repeatedly tested them for STDs – and boiling water, quickly followed by freezing water, was poured into their ears.

This water torture was ­excruciatingly painful and nearly drove them crazy, Perla recalled. Doctors pulled out healthy teeth but it wasn’t only physical pain they faced.

Dora Ovitz, the full-size wife of the eldest dwarf Avram, was quizzed by Mengele about her sex life. As he bombarded her with increasingly sleazy questions, he was actually salivating.

The Ovitzes were taken to Auschwitz eight months before its liberation by the Russians but Mengele planned to experiment on them for 20 years. Perla didn’t think she would last.

She dreaded suffering the same fate as two male dwarfs – a hunchback and his son – who’d arrived in the camp three months after them.

Their skeletons were to be shown in a museum in Berlin, so Mengele ordered staff to boil their bodies over a fire until flesh and bone ­separated.

He was so pleased that he had another dwarf killed for his skeleton. This time, his poor victim was dropped in acid.

Yet Mengele saved the Lilliputs’ lives by moving them to a different part of the camp when his jealous colleagues wanted them dead.

The dwarfs were careful not to anger the doctor and would call him Your Excellency or Uncle Mengele and sing his favourite songs.

Mengele thought Freida, one of Perla’s sister, was beautiful. He also took the dwarfs sweets and toys – which were snatched from children he had killed.

Perla admitted she fell for his film star looks and said: “No one could ever ­imagine that behind his beautiful face a beast was ­hiding. In his ­presence, we shielded ourselves with smiles but inside we ­trembled like fishes out of ­water.

"We were never fooled. He ­often said, ‘I’ve enough work on you for 20 years’. But that was no ­guarantee he’d keep us alive. He could finish the test, toss us in the flames and work on the findings.”

On one occasion the family were made to strip naked for dozens of SS officers at a lecture by Mengele. He filmed the talk and the episode plagued Perla right up until her death in 2001.

She said: “It annoys me our ­naked humiliation was preserved for all to see.”

Jewish gynaecologist Dr Gisella Perl, forced to work for Mengele, said: “The healthy, the talented, the beautiful, were ruthlessly ­exterminated, but everything ­abnormal was a source of constant amusement and enjoyment to our jailers because, only when comparing themselves with these freaks, could they feel superior.”

The Ovitzes returned to their Transylvanian village of Rozavlea and emigrated to Israel in 1949. Mengele fled to South America where he lived until his death, aged 67, of a stroke after swimming in the Atlantic in 1979.

(Image: Getty Images)

Warwick Davis' Lilliput Troupe tribute

Harry Potter star Warwick Davis is full of praise for the courage of the inspiring Lilliput Troupe.

Warwick, 43, whose ITV documentary about the dwarfs is out next month, said: “One of the most pleasing things I discovered is that they were professional performers through and through. Not some sort of novelty act but proper ­entertainers who were short.

“This really resonated with me. They’re also inspiring ­because they survived Auschwitz by sticking together, supporting each other and never losing hope.”

The book Giants: The Dwarfs of Auschwitz, by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev, published by The Robson Press, is out now priced £16.99.