Out of the 250 children from her Jewish school in Dresden Irma Hanner was one of just six who survived the Holocaust.
She was eight when someone told her what Gestapo meant, nine when they took her mother to Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp and 12 when they came for her.
At Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia she was surrounded by 40,000 people, but said she never felt more alone.
“I lost my childhood, my youth, and my family,” she said.
The resilient 86-year-old, who migrated to Australia in 1949, shared her brave story at the launch of The Australian War Memorial’s new permanent Holocaust display.
She said her children and five grandchildren jokingly call her “the bionic woman”.
Read the full article by Georgina Connery at The Canberra Times.