Ivor Pearl, a 92-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor, shares his harrowing experiences from Auschwitz in the BBC documentary What Happened at Auschwitz. Deported at age 12 from Hungary in 1944, Ivor recounted how inhumane conditions led prisoners to lose their humanity, with desperation so profound that he hoped nearby inmates would die for their belongings. Upon arrival, Ivor lost contact with his family, as the weak were sent directly to gas chambers. The documentary not only highlights survivor testimonies but also addresses rising Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism on social media, emphasizing the need to combat misinformation.
A Jewish Holocaust survivor imprisoned at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp during World War II recalled how he and his fellow inmates were dehumanized during their captivity.
Ivor Pearl, 92, reflected on the desperate conditions inside the Nazi concentration camp and shared his experiences in a new half-hour BBC One documentary, What Happened at Auschwitz, on Monday night.
In March 1944, at the age of 12, Eivor was deported from his native Hungary with his parents and seven siblings to a concentration camp in southern Poland. Only Ivar and one brother Alec survived.
In an interview with journalist Jordan Dunbar, he spoke of how the horrifying treatment the prisoners endured made them “not human anymore.”
Reflecting on the desperate conditions inside the Nazi concentration camps, Ivar explained: “In the end, when I went to bed, I was hoping that the person living next to me would die overnight.”
“Why?” he continued, “we might pinch his shoes or his clothes. We were no longer human beings.”
Ivor also spoke of the harrowing journey his family had to make to reach the camp.
“Death happens on the trains, disease happens, and you can’t explain it, because we don’t live,” Ivar said, recalling the crowded bullock cars used to transport Jews to Auschwitz. There is no point in explaining the inhumanity that has occurred.” The few days we were on the ship. ”
Ivor Pearl, 92, bravely recalls his time in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during World War II in a new BBC documentary.
But this was just the beginning of Ivar’s ordeal. Upon arriving at the death camp, Ivor asked to be with his mother, who was holding her “youngest brother, youngest sister and two other sisters.”
His mother, perhaps sensing that she and her brothers would not be saved, told Ivar to return to his brother.
Ivor recalled: “So I went back to my brother, but of course that was the last time I saw any living family members.”
Once at Auschwitz, people considered too weak to work, such as women, children, and the elderly, were sent straight to the gas chambers and killed using Zyklon B gas.
Zyklon B was originally an insecticide, but it quickly killed humans when inhaled or absorbed through the skin.
The bodies of those killed in the gas chambers were then collected by other prisoners and taken to one of the four crematoriums, where they were burned.
According to Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Research Center, the four crematoriums “can accommodate a total of about 5,000 bodies per day.”
“No matter how much you think about the horrors, you can’t imagine what’s going on,” Ivor said, recalling the gas chambers and crematoriums that subjected prisoners to constant fear.
In March 1944, 12-year-old Eivor was deported to a concentration camp in southern Poland (pictured).
Upon arriving at the death camp, Ivar wished to be with his mother. Pictured is Ivor, 14 years old.
Mr Ivor spoke on Monday night on BBC One’s new 30-minute documentary, “What Happened at Auschwitz.”
“Who could imagine gassing people and burning them?”
January 27th marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, but as journalist Jordan Dunbar points out, “we now live in a world of misinformation and denial.”
Jordan added: “If these distortions of our understanding are allowed to take hold, we risk rewriting history and forgetting the true horrors of the Holocaust.”
BBC One’s ‘What Happened at Auschwitz’ not only tells the story of the Holocaust through the testimony of Ivor Pearl and three other survivors, but also exposes the Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism prevalent on social media I’m doing it.
Dov Forman, the great-grandson of survivor Lily Ebert, who passed away in October 2024 at the age of 100, has revealed how her late great-grandmother’s TikTok account, which she set up to share her testimony with young people, He said he received “thousands of comments every day.” Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites.
“Hitler missed,” “The Holocaust is fake,” and “We’re coming for you, we’re coming to kill you” are just some of the shocking comments posted by TikTokers on the account @lilyebert. Part of it. It has 2 million followers and is run by Dov.
Speaking to Jordan Dunbar, Dobb said 16 per cent of posts of Holocaust and Jewish content that children see on social media platforms in 2022 are “anti-Semitic, Holocaust denial and distortion.” He cited a UNESCO report from 2007.
This statistic becomes even more alarming when you consider that 50% of people got their news from social media last year.
Ivar and other survivors who appeared on the show spoke to journalist Jordan Dunbar (pictured)
Dov Forman, the great-grandson of survivor Lily Ebert (pictured here), who died in October 2024 at the age of 100, said the TikTok account her late great-grandmother set up to share her testimony with young people was “What? “I received over a thousand comments,” he said. every day’
“People scrolling are absorbing pure disinformation, hatred and denial about the Holocaust,” Dove added.
Agreeing that the “demonization” of Jews spread by the Nazis is no longer “only in books and movies and on the radio,” Dunbar said, “Now it comes directly to our phones.” There is.
“I think we owe it to people who have experienced it to really ask where they’re getting this information from, who’s providing this information and why,” he says.
“That hatred that we saw still exists in some form.”
‘What Happened at Auschwitz’ is available on BBC iPlayer.
