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Entry to Auschwitz - Source: ONE News
Aucklander Fred Silberstein, who survived the Nazis' Auschwitz concentration camp to testify at the Nuremberg war crimes trials in 1946, has died at the age of 80.
Silberstein was just 14 when he was shipped to Auschwitz with thousands of other Jews in 1943.
On arrival at the Nazis' infamous camp he lied about his age, adding a year so he could do manual labour and avoid the death chambers, the immediate fate of most children.
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) he underwent surgery by the so-called Angel of Death, Josef Mengele who conducted medical experiments on patients without anaesthetics.
Silberstein was one of many former camp inmates who gave evidence at Nuremberg about the wartime barbarities in the concentrations camps.
He migrated to New Zealand in 1948 and for the next 60 years tirelessly bore witness to the horrors of the Holocaust.
His work of telling New Zealanders about what went on during the Holocaust earned him a Queen's Service Medal for community services in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours.
Silberstein, who died in Auckland on Monday, is survived by his wife and two children.
