Eva Marika Weinberger (nee Cierer), b. 1928, Kosice, Czechoslovakia. Immigrated to Australia 1950.

It was a long time before Marika voiced her memories. Yet for her the past and present couldn't be separated, for even waving goodbye to her grandchildren on a toy train brought back nightmares of other trains. Her grandchildren dared ask the questions which unlocked the secrets she now repeats as a sacred duty, to protect their future.

l)Marika Weinberger as a young woman r)Marika Weinberger today

In the camps of Auschwitz, Riga, Stutthof and Ravensbruck, Marika learned that compassion exists even in the most abysmal circumstances. On arrival at Auschwitz, seasoned inmates protected the new prisoners with warnings on how to behave. Marika was told to cast her blue eyes down and to say she was 18 and not 15, as she passed Dr Mengele, the Nazi "Angel of Death". Her aunt's walking stick - a death sentence - was thrown away before "The Dog" saw it. A woman coaxed her to eat the stinking food and use the vile latrines. These were only tiny gestures, but they meant the difference between life and death.

Although it would have been easier to lie down and die in the snow, love for her older sister made Marika go on. They shared potato peels and scrappy blankets and her sister dragged her to work when she was ill. Later, on the death march, she and her aunt held Marika upright between their shoulders, as she sleep-walked through sights she still can't recall.

Today, as a public speaker and past President of the Australian Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants, Marika Weinberger says: "We survived for a purpose. Education is the only solution."