Holocaust survivor recalls four years of hiding

Dorit Oliver-Wolff was given a British Empire Medal for services to Holocaust education and awareness in 2020

A Holocaust survivor who hid in a cellar with her mother for nine months without light or heating says she will continue to educate people "as long as I have a breath in my body".

Dorit Oliver-Wolff, who lives in Eastbourne, East Sussex, resided in Budapest when she was first forced to hide from the Nazis at the age of five.

The 89-year-old continues to tell her story as Sussex, Kent and Surrey honours Holocaust Memorial Day, which marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, where more than a million people were killed.

Eighty years later, Ms Oliver-Wolff - who was given a British Empire Medal in 2020 – said she was adamant that "anti-Semitism must not be repeated again".

From 1941, Ms Oliver-Wolff and her mother spent four years in hiding - including nine months in a cellar.

She was caught twice, managing to escape both times. On one occasion, Ms Oliver-Wolff was turned in to the Nazis by the woman who looked after her while her mother he was working.

She recalled: "The door burst open, 'this is the stinking little Jew who is hiding here, she is contaminating the air. I just want to get rid of her'."

After being taken away by Adolf Hitler's SS group, she was taken to a processing house in Budapest from which she managed to escape in excrement-filled sheets.

"The smell of ammonia made my eyes water," she said.

Memorial events were held on Monday in Tunbridge Wells and Woking, while people can attend a candle vigil in Brighton city centre until 17:00 GMT.

Later on Monday evening, there is to be an event in Eastbourne, while Medway's commemoration will take place at a school near Rochester.

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