'Every night, I heard the last sighs of girls dying. They were the lucky ones'

Lotte Weiss' first 'crime' at the concentration camp was to finish digging through a plot of debris too quickly and move over to help her sister clear through hers.

The punishment? Death by gassing.

But Lotte escaped the gas chamber because the truck could hold only 20 people - she was 21st in line.

A combination of guile and the kindness of strangers in the camp, from clerks and civilians, to her work commander, or Kapo, a German Gentile imprisoned for prostitution, saved Lotte during the three horrific years she spent in Auschwitz.

The rest of her family was not as fortunate. Her father was beaten to death. Her two older sisters and younger brother died of typhus.

Her two youngest siblings were sent to the gas chambers because they were not old enough to work. Her mother died with them.