Woman born at gates of Nazi concentration camp survived because of ‘luck’
She has claimed she is still alive thanks to "luck".
On 29 April 1945, just one day after exhausting its fuel supply for the gas chamber.
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The couple got married in May 1940 and were among the pioneering individuals to be sent to Theresienstadt labour camp as they were "young, strong and capable of working", Ms Clarke stated.
The lady, speaking to PA news before the Holocaust Memorial Day, explained to them she and her companion had miraculously managed to endure life in the camp for an extraordinary three years.
Her parents, who were separated in the camp, met up somehow and soon her mother became pregnant with Ms Clarke's brother.
According to Ms Clarke, the Nazis viewed pregnancy within a concentration camp as a punishable offence, potentially resulting in a death sentence. She claimed that her parents were forced to sign a document agreeing that when the baby was born, it would be surrendered for "euthanasia".
“'We used to call it mercy killing, my mother would never have known what euthanasia meant,” Ms Clarke added.
Her brother was born at the camp in February 1944, however, sadly passed away two months later due to complications from pneumonia.
Ms Clarke said: "My mother often used to say luck played a significant part in them surviving, but by the end of September 1944, their luck had ultimately ran out, as it was on that day my father was sent to Auschwitz."
Ms Clarke revealed her mother, Anka Bergman, had offered to join her husband the following day without knowing the destination, she added.
She surprised herself by harbouring a sense of hope, thinking that, having managed to make it through that far, surely things couldn't possibly take a turn for the worse.
“She never, ever laid eyes on him again, heard from an eyewitness that my father had met a fatal end as he was being marched away to his death on January 18th, 1945, close to Auschwitz, and the camp was finally liberated on the 27th of that month.”
Of her brother, Ms Clarke said: "His death meant that my life and my mother's life were saved because if my mother had arrived at Auschwitz Birkenau holding my brother in her arms, they would have both been sent straight to the gas chambers."
Where she was employed on the V1 unmanned flying bomb.
Ms Clarke said: “She was there for six months, becoming increasingly malnourished and visibly pregnant, and that was very hazardous for her.”
“By the time the Germans acknowledged she was pregnant, it was too late for her to be sent back to Auschwitz, as it had already been freed, so it's a stroke of good fortune.”
When the Nazis started clearing the camps, her mother was sent on a coal train late in March 1945, and was forced to endure a long, gruelling journey with scarce food and little water before finally arriving at Mauthausen concentration camp.
"As soon as she caught sight of Mauthausen at the station, she was absolutely shocked, because this time she knew exactly what Mauthausen represented, unlike when she hadn't known what Auschwitz was when she first arrived; it was then that she began to give birth to me on a coal wagon," Ms Clarke explained.
“She had to alight from the coal wagon because it was at the entrance of Mauthausen that I was born.”
She went on to say: "There are three reasons why we survived, and the one that sends shivers down one's spine is that the Germans had run out of petrol for the gas vans on 28th April 1945."
“My birthday is 29th.
“We were fortunate to have survived for two main reasons. Firstly, because Hitler's death on April 30th had a significant impact. Additionally, our liberation on May 5th by the American Army was a major factor in our survival.”
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