There are no winners in war - Holocaust survivor

Hannah Lewis came to London in 1949

A Holocaust survivor who watched as her mother was shot dead in front of her by the Nazis has warned there are "no winners in war".

Hannah Lewis and her father Adam were the only members of her family to survive the genocide of World War Two.

Now 86, Mrs Lewis has warned future generations to stay vigilant because "human nature is the same".

She grew up in Poland and was rounded up with her family and forcibly marched to a labour camp in 1943.

Towards the end of the war, her mother was lined up in a group and shot dead.

Speaking at her home in north London ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day on Saturday, she said humans had a self-destructive nature.

'We don't learn'

"By the end of the war, only my father and I survived, everyone else had been murdered," she said.

"Look what's happening in the world. We don't learn. Climates may change, places may change, but human nature is the same.

"We're sort of self-destructive almost."

Mrs Lewis has been sharing her experiences through the Holocaust Educational Trust's Outreach Programme

Mrs Lewis, who is Jewish, was liberated from the labour camp and in 1949 was brought to live with her great-aunt and uncle in London.

She married in 1961 and had four children. She now has eight grandchildren.

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For several years she has been sharing her experiences in schools and universities through the Holocaust Educational Trust's Outreach Programme, to help young people understand the impact of the Holocaust.

She said: "People say to me, 'do you tell us this because you hate the Germans so much?'

"I say 'no, I'm telling you this because I like you so much and I want you to be vigilant'.

"We shouldn't be horrible to each other. We shouldn't want to kill each other.

"There's plenty of room for everything and everybody. We need to be kinder to each other.

"There are no winners in war. There's the damaged and the less damaged, but there's no winners."

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