‘I watched and wondered which of the flames was my mother as they burned the bodies from the gas chamber’

It was in that moment the now 90-year-old Holocaust survivor understood he would never see her again.

He told the BBC's landmark documentary The Last Survivors: "I remember standing there and thinking 'Which of the flames is my mother?'"

Frank is one of a few left behind who witnessed one of history's worst atrocities first-hand.

Six million Jews, millions of gypsies, Russians and prisoners of war died in Hitler's death camps between 1941 and 1945.

With the last witnesses to the slaughter now dying out, the BBC documentary spent 12 months following the few survivors living in Britain today, now in their 80s and 90s.

Red for dead

Frank has kept a photo of his German classmates who he has painstakingly tried to "bring back into memory" – with some circled in red and some in blue.

He said: "I call it red for dead, which is pretty crude but it is to the point."

The small number circled in blue, like him, survived.

Frank and his mother arrived at the death camp in Poland,  in 1944, shortly after the class photo was taken.

She was herded into a line for those deemed unfit for work: “She broke ranks, came to me, shook my hand and went back."

He adds it was only after he had been shaven and given prison clothing that he understood she had been sent to the gas chambers and would not be joining him in the concentration camp.

"I went out and I saw flames and realised what had happened."

'My dead baby sister was thrown on to a pile of bodies'

Maurice Blik, 79, a sculptor who lives in Essex with his wife Debra, has never spoken publicly of what he went through.

His sister Millie was born in Belsen death camp when he was four and he remembers being excited to make her a first birthday present – a small boat made from an old carrot.

“I kept asking my mum, ‘Is it her birthday soon?’ And she would say, ‘Not now. Soon.’” But the little girl wouldn't live to receive the present.

Tragically, the baby's tiny body ended up on a pile of other bodies that lined the streets of Belsen.

“When my little sister died, Clara, my older sister tells me she took her out and put her on the heap," he recalls.

“I was quite angry that she died and that she had gone without me giving her my gift…"

“I don’t know exactly what happened to my father. I know he got taken to Auschwitz. My fantasy is that he got killed trying to escape but I have no idea. It’s always been a struggle you know, how do you deal with that loss?

“I need to somehow bring my father back to life."

Maurice – who uses his artwork to recreate the image of his father – says he struggles with the guilt of knowing he lived while his family members perished.

'That crying in my heart, it’s there every day'

In the documentary, which airs on Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27th, Ivor Perl makes a difficult return to Auschwitz, taking along his daughter Judy and granddaughter.

The 86-year-old is surrounded by an audience of weeping visitors who listen to his own distressing and painful recollection of how he arrived on in the camp some 75 years ago.

"It was absolutely stifling hot and as the train stopped German guards kept on going past asking ‘any sick people on board?’

"I remember falling down on the floor, holding my head and opening my eye and I could see what happened.

“All these thousands of people – women and children on one side and men on the other side."

Fellow survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, 93, explained that the guards separated the arrivals into groups on the left and right.

"If it was to the left you were to live, if it was to the right you were going into the gas chambers straight from the train.

"I remember them seeing me and saying ‘strong as a horse’ and they sent me to the left."

For Ivor, the memories were too painful and he was unable to finish the tour.

He broke down in tears, telling his daughter: "Enough is enough. All I can tell you is, that crying in my heart, it’s there every day."

If it was to the left you were to live, if it was to the right you were going straight into the gas chambers straight from the train

Judy worries about her father being able to confront the horrors he witnessed: "He can never be at peace, he can never move forward. He is stuck. He emotionally cut off the moment he stepped off that train as a child."

'I can't cry because the crying would have no end.'

Susan Pollack, another Auschwitz survivor, lost 50 relatives in the atrocity including her parents.

She explains that she hasn't been able to cry: "Because I think the crying would have no end."

Instead she makes it her life mission to inform, teach and to help others remember those who are no longer here.

She was 14 when she was sent to Auschwitz, saying that she made a lucky escape from the gas chamber: "There was a Hungarian speaking victim warning us quietly ‘don’t say you’re younger than 15 years old’… That was what saved me from being sent to the gas chamber on arrival."

Her mum unfortunately was selected: "There was no parting words. Just a hug and 'I love you'."

Susan recalls the effect the camp had on her growing up: "We had been so traumatised by that I think I had lost the ability to express myself. We were dehumanised from the beginning of arrival in Auschwitz."

For the some 400,000 survivors that are still living in the world today, a handful putting their stories on film means they will never be forgotten.

Survivor Manfred Goldberg says: "Time is moving on and it will not be long before there are no first hand survivors left alive and it is important to record this testimony as evidence for future generations."

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