Auschwitz-Birkenau: University of Life: To Be or Not To Be

Josef Hellen was 15 in August 1942, when police walked into his Czech classroom and ordered five boys to come with them.  He never saw his family again.  Josef ended up in the Canada (‘Land of Plenty’) Commando in Auschwitz, where belongings brought by Jews were sorted and sent back to Germany. Canada was right beside the gas chambers and the workers witnessed tens of thousands walking to their deaths. Josef escaped from a death march and made his way to Hungary, where he met his wife, whose story is also told here.  In Australia, Josef worked to gather capital to construct 100 brick, three-bedroom milk bars in Melbourne, before building a property empire in the USA.