London, Jan. 26, 2024
A Holocaust survivor, who was rescued on the way to a concentration camp, on Friday warned people to “stand up against hatred and prejudice.”
Ivan Shaw, now 84 years old and living in London, was just five when his Jewish parents were arrested by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp.
Shaw has been awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM).
The youngster was himself being marched towards a train bound for Auschwitz when he was saved by his aunt in a daring rescue.
Shaw was born in 1939 in Novi Sad in what was then Yugoslavia, part of modern-day Serbia. He has been married for nearly 60 years and has three children and six grandchildren.
He said, he had never been aware of anti-Semitism in the UK until a recent rise caused by the Hamas-Israel conflict.
The number of anti-Semitic hate crimes recorded by many of the UK’s largest police forces jumped sharply in the weeks following the outbreak of the conflict, figures show.
“I will never have believed it. I thought Britain was different,” he told the PA news agency.
In 1944, Germans began to round up and deport Jews, including his mother.
His father decided to go with her, in spite of being only half-Jewish.
Shaw was hidden by one of his father’s sisters until his concealment was given away by a neighbour.
He recalled: “After about 10 days I was betrayed by one of the neighbours.
“Who will want to betray a five-year-old little boy? The mind just boggles.”
He was taken to prison by the Gestapo, spending the night alone in a cell before being moved to a transit camp where he was reunited with his family.
The inmates were taken to a train station to be moved to the Auschwitz concentration camp when one of his aunts risked her life to save her nephew.
Shaw said: “I was taken with thousands of other prisoners to the railway station with a view to being put on a train to Auschwitz.
“The road to the station bordered along a public forest. I was force-marched along this road.
“Much to my amazement, I suddenly found my aunt dashing out of the forest, grabbing me, and running back into the forest.
“The whole incident must’ve taken a few minutes.”
Both of his parents died in the camps, while Shaw was hidden for about nine months by his aunt and her family.
“Had she been betrayed, she would have been shot, the whole family would have been shot, and the house would have been burnt down,” he added.
After the war was over, he moved to Amersham in Buckinghamshire to live with his aunt, and later enjoyed a successful career with retailer Marks & Spencer.
“We have to stand up against hatred and prejudice; hatred leads eventually to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
Shaw was speaking ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day on Saturday.
Along with others, he shared his testimony in schools and colleges across the UK through a Holocaust Educational Trust programme.
This programme gave tens of thousands of young people the opportunity to hear the testimony of Holocaust survivors.
