THE full horrors of The Holocaust were brought vividly to life for pupils at Woodfield Middle School on Wednesday when Nazi death camp survivor Mindu Hornick visited.
Year 8 youngsters have been doing lessons on combating prejudice and hate and had been reading poetry written by children imprisoned in the camps.
Mindu was born in what is now the Czech Republic but when the Germans invaded in 1939 she and her family were moved into a ghetto because they were Jewish.
From there the family were sent to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, enduring a three day rail journey in cattle wagons.
Once there her mother and two brothers were sent straight to the gas chambers.
However one of the ‘Kapos’ – Jews who worked for the Germans – took pity on Mindu and her elder sister and told them to say they were older than they actually were.
As a result they were spared the gas chambers and were sent on to the main camp where they ended up making munitions for the German war effort.
She and her sister were not liberated until the day before the war officially ended, on May 8, 1945.
Her friend and staff member at Woodfield Academy, Helen Parry said: “They went back to Czechoslovakia before her sister left to live in Australia.
“Then in 1948 Mindu’s uncle sent £50 for her to come to Birmingham.
“She’d always intended to go to Australia but within two to three years she had met her husband and settled down in this country.”
The couple got on with their lives together, but when The Holocaust was put on the school curriculum, suddenly Mindu had a calling.
“She’s a survivor, possibly the last survivor in the Birmingham area and when children meet her they just want to hug her,” said Helen.
“Her life should really be made into a film; for that man, the Kapo, to make the decision he did, to spare her and her sister, it really is the stuff films are made of.”
