Hannah Lewis was only seven years old when she saw a Nazi death squad execute her mother.
His family was rounded up by the forces of Adolf Hitler and forced to march to a labor camp in the Polish village of Adampol in 1943.
Hannah’s father, Adam, escaped from the camp to join the Partisans – a Jewish resistance movement during the World War II – and returned to warn of an impending Nazi raid, the night before his wife died.
Hannah’s mother, Haya, refused to flee, fearing her daughter – who had fallen ill with a high fever and suspected typhoid – would not survive.
“As long as I live, I’ll always wonder how she got through that night,” Hannah told Sky’s Sophy Ridge.
“How did she make the decision she made? Was it fair?
The next morning, Hannah heard “screams” and “screams” following the arrival of the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazis’ mobile killing unit responsible for the massacre of Jews.
“Suddenly there was a knock on the door and my mother – with great dignity – got down on her knees, picked me up and hugged me and kissed me,” Hannah says.
“She didn’t run, she didn’t make a sound. She walked to the door, opened the door and closed it tightly behind her.
“I waited for her to come back…but she didn’t come back.”
“Blood on the Snow”
Hannah, an only child, went to pick up her mother and saw Haya and others being “pushed” past a well in the village.
She remembers her mother seeming calm but not wanting to look her in the eye.
“I decided to come downstairs and take her hand, like I always have,” Hannah said, fighting back tears.
“As I was about to go barefoot, someone shouted an order and they started shooting.
“I saw her fall…and I saw the blood on the snow.”
In addition to her mother, Hannah’s grandfather, her uncle and her younger cousin Shlomo were also murdered in Adampol.
Now 85 and living in North London, Hannah shares her experience to score Holocaust Memorial Day, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp.
Six million Jewish men, women and children were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. In her family, only Hannah and her father survived.
Hannah pictured before she was forcibly taken to a labor camp
“I never forgave myself for losing my cousin”
Hannah described her cousin Shlomo – who was deaf and unable to speak – as “the brother I never had” and “the one person I absolutely adored”.
She remembers being outside the camp with the little boy, about three years old, when she heard the sound of Nazi vehicles stopping.
“He couldn’t hear and he couldn’t speak so I took his hand,” Hannah said. “I pulled him to let him know he had to come and we ran to the nearest barn.”
Hannah says she dived into a mound of straw where she and Shlomo often hid, but realized he wasn’t there.
She was about to leave her hiding place to find him when she saw her cousin standing near the barn door.
“The door opened and (the Nazis) saw him and they literally grabbed him by the scruff of his neck,” she said.
“The last time I saw my adorable cousin was his back…and his throbbing legs. I never saw him again.
“When I lost Shlomo, I never forgave myself.”
Hannah pictured with her cousin Shlomo
Go underground
Hannah’s family lived in the small town of Włodawa in Poland when the Nazis invaded.
“Suddenly there was a curfew,” she says. “And suddenly my grandfather couldn’t trade anymore. And suddenly you had to wear a mark.
“I remember my dad, before it got really bad, putting me in a sled and taking me to a photographer.
“I’m standing here trying to smile and I have tears in my eyes because I know something awful is going on and it’s not right.
“I was probably six years old.”
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The family first went into hiding, staying in a barn that required a “special move” to enter.
“There were two or three other families there and when they saw me they weren’t very happy,” says Hannah.
“They didn’t want to hide with children.”
After a night there, Hannah says that “suddenly the barn door opened” and “everyone froze.”
She remembers seeing “the tips of very shiny boots” and pointy hats of Nazi soldiers as they were “rummaging”.
“We sat there like statues,” Hannah says.
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Hannah Lewis spoke to Sky News about her experience during the Holocaust
“Luck Has Turned”
While the family narrowly avoided being found that time, Hannah says eventually their “luck ran out” and they had an hour to pack their things.
Just six years old, Hannah says she walked almost five hours to Adampol labor camp.
“If you tripped or fell, no one helped you up,” she says.
“I remember they were shooting someone.”
Once they arrived at the camp, there was no electricity or running water, and security measures included barbed wire fencing and a watchtower.
As a little girl, Hannah tried to deal with the trauma of witnessing her mother’s death and initially refused to believe she had been killed.
Instead, she convinced herself that Haya was hurt and pretended to be dead to save herself.
It wasn’t until she was freed by a Soviet soldier and reunited with her father – who had also witnessed his wife’s murder – that reality dawned on Hannah.
“He grabbed me, he laughed, he cried, he hugged me,” she says of her father.
“I said, ‘Where’s mum?’ He said, “Mom won’t be coming back. Mom is dead. You saw it.”
“I remember he shook me because apparently for a few hours I didn’t make a single sound.”
Hannah pictured with her father Adam
“Children ask: do you hate Germans?
After the war, Hannah and her father lived in the Polish city of Lodz and she admits she became “jealous” of other children who had both parents.
She moved to Britain in 1949 to live with her great-aunt and uncle, while her father left Poland for Israel in 1953.
She married in 1961 and has four children and eight grandchildren, and now shares her Holocaust experience in schools and universities.
“Once in a while the kids say, ‘Are you telling your story because you hate Germans?'” she says.
“I say no, I tell my story because I care about you.
“Beware of people who promise you the world and don’t deliver.”
