Auschwitz survivor to tell her poignant story and fulfil vow

Czechoslovakian-born Iby Knill was 20 when she was sent to the camp in Poland. She spent six weeks there before being transferred to the German labour camp Kaunitz, which was eventually liberated. The 90-year-old, who now lives in Leeds, witnessed atrocities in Auschwitz, and made a promise to a young girl that if she survived she would tell the world what they had seen.

After the war, Ms Knill moved to Britain where she married and had two children, Christopher, now 65, and Pauline, 58. She finally gathered the courage to pen her story four years ago when she wrote The Woman Without a Number.

Students Robin Pepper, Mark Oxley and Ian Orwin have now turned her memories into a film. It will be broadcast on Community Channel on International Holocaust Memorial Day later this month, marking the 69th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945.

In the film, Ms Knill says: “We had heard rumours about Auschwitz, but we didn’t believe it because we didn’t think that a civilised nation like the Germans would do something like that. We didn’t think this was even a possibility of happening. And to find that not only was everything we heard true but it was actually much worse. That we were being dehumanised.”

The film-makers recently graduated from Teesside University, where they studied film and TV production as part of their final year, self-funded project.

An Auschwitz Promise will be broadcast on January 27 at 8pm. Community Channel is funded by the Big Lottery Fund and is owned and run by communications charity Media Trust.