Mala, 94, was liberated from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on April 15, 1945 by British soldiers (Image: Philip Coburn)
Mala Tribich was a child, seriously ill and dying, but has never forgotten the warmth and love of British soldiers who rescued her from brutal Nazi oppression.
During the Second World War her mother and younger sister were murdered and she was put to work as a slave labourer before languishing inside two concentration camps.
At Bergen-Belsen Mala contracted typhus, but will always remember the brave men who plucked her from the depths of hell.
And on Monday she will proudly be the UK’s only Holocaust survivor at Auschwitz as the world stops to mark the 80th anniversary of the Jewish genocide.
Mala, 94, will return to Poland, where she was born Mala Helfgott in 1930, and join King Charles in standing shoulder-to-shoulder to honour generations lost to humanity’s most heinous crime.
She said: “During those long five-and-a-half years we would say to each other that it can’t get any worse than this, but when we arrived in Bergen-Belsen that was the ultimate, it was horrendous, beyond human endurance. The first thing that hit you was the smell and smog. There were skeletons shuffling along aimlessly in a daze and as they shuffled they would collapse and die.
“There were dead bodies everywhere and piles of naked twisted decaying corpses. I heard that there was a children’s home somewhere in the camp and we quickly set out to find it. We were lucky to get in, but I still succumbed to typhus. I remember coming into consciousness on my bunk by the window and seeing people running. That was April 15, 1945 when we were liberated by the wonderful British forces. I cannot describe what it meant to be treated with kindness – as human beings – by these soldiers.”
Mala has displayed extraordinary courage and has dedicated her life to Holocaust education (Image: Phil Harris)
Mala, incarcerated at Ravensbruck and later Bergen-Belsen, was awarded an MBE from the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 in honour of her work to educate the next generation about the horrors of the Holocaust. And when she returns on Monday her message will be steadfast and unequivocal: we must never forget.
She said: “I intend to share my testimony for as long as I am able to, but there will become a time when this is not possible. The memory of the Holocaust cannot be left to fade when us eyewitnesses are no longer able to share our memories.
“As the Holocaust moves further into history future generations [need to] understand why it is important to learn from the past and stand up against injustice.”
Mala was born in Piotrkow and lived happily with her parents Sara and Moishe, brother Ben and sister Lucia. But when she was eight her life changed forever.
The Nazis invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, and over the following five-and-a-half years Mala lost her parents, sister and most of her extended family.
Piotrkow was the first town in the country to have a ghetto where all Jews were incarcerated in appallingly cramped and unhygienic conditions, deprived of basic human rights. But worse was to come.
Mala said: “In 1942, my mother and eight-year-old sister Lucia were taken from the ghetto to the nearby Rakov forest together with 560 others. There they were brutally murdered. One of my uncles was also shot and my aunt was deported, so I had to look after their five-year-old daughter, my cousin Ann. At the age of 12 I became a slave labourer when the Piotrkow ghetto was finally liquidated. After 18-months Ann and I were deported to Ravensbruck whilst the men, including my brother Ben and my father, were sent to Buchenwald. After about ten weeks at Ravensbruck we were deported to Bergen-Belsen in cattle cars.”
The horrors inside Bergen-Belsen were described to the world by Richard Dimbleby, the first broadcaster to enter the camp, and in footage that is among the most poignant and moving in TV history, he broke down delivering his first-hand report. The initially refused to play his dispatch as bosses refused to believe the scenes he had witnessed, and it was only broadcast after he threatened to resign.
Mala’s mother Sara (back row 2nd left) brother Ben (2nd left middle) Mala is front row first left (Image: Phil Harris)
Speaking to the Express before his death aged 99 last year D-Day hero Albert Fenton, who served during the fabled Normandy invasion with the Royal Army Service Corps, also described the satanic scenes at the concentration camp which was used by the Nazis to intern Jews from 1943 onwards. Tens of thousands perished inside as starving and mortally ill prisoners were packed together without food, water or sanitation, many suffering from typhus and dysentery.
On arriving at the gates Albert remembered: “We were confronted by the commanding officer asking if we knew where we were, which none of us did. He then told us our worst nightmare – we were at Bergen-Belsen.
“The first thing you noticed was the horrible stench in the air. It was nothing I had ever experienced before but was horrid and we could see the furnaces burning.
“Although we were not allowed into the other camps we could see through the fences with barbed wire around the top. From where we stood, we could see the pile of bodies stacked one on top of the other like a big bonfire.”
Albert added: “There were British soldiers driving bulldozers digging long trenches and we could see German soldiers being ordered to one by one put bodies into the trench. It was a job nobody wanted to do but this was the unbelievable mess that they had caused.
“My truck was loaded with about 40 Jews, mostly men. As I was loading my truck I noticed Mr Dimbleby outside the gates. It was here we heard that over 50,000 of the prisoners were dead.”
Remarkably, Ann and her mother survived the Holocaust while Mala was sent to Sweden to recuperate. While she was there she discovered Ben was the only other survivor in her family. They were reunited in Britain in 1947. And it was here that Mala slowly rebuilt her life, marrying, having two children and, later, blessed with three grandchildren.
Here she learnt English, attended secretarial college and within a year was working in an office. In 1949 she met Maurice, and married a year later.
While her children were growing up she studied and gained a degree in sociology from the University of London.
Sir Ben, 93, became an Olympian and champion weightlifter, captaining the British teams at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne and the 1960 Olympics in Rome. He also won a bronze medal at the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, South Wales, an won gold medal in the lightweight class at the 1950, 1953 and 1957 Maccabiah Games in .
He died in June 2023 aged 93, one of only two Jewish athletes known to have competed in the Olympics after surviving the Holocaust.
Mala said: “For decades I have shared my story with tens of thousands of people across this country. Year on year I tell my testimony in schools, universities, government departments and businesses. The vast majority of the people I speak to are students at school or those who are just about to enter university.
“I hope that my words and my story will reach them, that they will learn from the past, and work towards building a better world.
“But, despite my talks and those of my brave fellow survivors who also speak in schools, the lessons of the Holocaust are yet to be learnt. Prejudice and discrimination still live on.
“Britain must lead the way in educating the next generation about the dangers of antisemitism, hatred and racial prejudice.”