My nightmare: Belsen

SITTING in her living room surrounded by family photographs, Toni Zwaak looks every inch the proud grandmother.

The frail, yet dignified, woman is recovering in her Darlington home after suffering a heart attack - and she is the first to admit she is not as agile as she used to be.

"My body is getting old, but my mind is as young as it ever was," she says in a conspiratorial whisper.

You have to believe her, for she has an active mind filled with memories of the most remarkable kind.

The 79-year-old was born in Rotterdam, Holland, on August 8 1925. She was the youngest of two girls and her family - including her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews - were in the hotel business together.

She enjoyed a comfortable childhood before the war broke out, and one of her fellow school pupils was a girl called Anne Frank.

Despite losing contact with her when the war started, Toni was to hear of her schoolmate again. Anne Frank went on to be the best-known victim of Hitler's Jewish Holocaust.

Anne and her family spent two years hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam, protected by non-Jewish friends. They were finally discovered in August 1944 and sent to concentration camps.

Anne, like Toni, was sent to Belsen, but she was not lucky enough to get out. She died when typhoid raged through the concentration camp's population.

The Diaries of Anne Frank were published in 1947 and translated into more than 50 languages.

In stark comparison, Toni has never wanted to share her story - until now. And the words spill from her lips.

After plumping up a cushion behind her, she begins: "I'll start from when the war broke out. Holland wasn't then occupied by Germany, but there was a rumbling about.

"My mum, dad, sister and I were having breakfast when an announcement came over the wireless.

"It said 'Holland must surrender now because if it does not, we are coming to burn you out'.

"I didn't think it would happen, but it wasn't long before the bombers came flying over Rotterdam, destroying my city.

"The next morning, the Nazis arrived with big wagons and took my people out to a large field where we stayed overnight. The following day, the wagons came back to take us away. I had lost my sister in the crowd and didn't know where my mum and dad were."

Toni says they were bundled on to the wagons and, after travelling for many hours, ended up at a farm and were told it was a working camp.

She says: "One of our tasks was to pick strawberries, but we ate more than we picked because we were so hungry - and they would throw water over us rather than give us some to drink.

"As a young girl of 14, I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know where I was, how long I was going to be there and had been separated from my family. I was lost.

"Things didn't get any better. From the camp, it seemed Germany was winning the war and the soldiers in charge of us were getting more harsh.

"From this camp we were taken to others, but where we were going, no one knew.

"We had no food and no clothes and when we got to one camp they deloused us, stripped us and we were made to live in rags.

"By then, we had lost all of our dignity."

She tells how a soldier approached her and told her to go to his hut because he had some good news for her. Like an idiot, she says, she believed him: "Me, and the other girls, were raped over and over again by gangs of soldiers. We were too young to appreciate what was happening, but we knew we were being treated worse than animals.

"We knew what the soldiers wanted when they took ten or 15 girls at a time to their huts.

"We all knew what was happening - and when they returned, we would find what little water we could to wash and clean them, because we were made to feel so dirty.

"Even now, when I think of what happened to me, I feel dirty and ashamed. I am frightened that it could be happening again in wars across the world or worry that it could happen to my grandchildren.

"The soldiers used to tell me I was a dirty Jew, but I am a human being and I like to be clean. Sadly though, when you are told something over and over again, you start to think it might be true."

Toni stayed at the camp for some time. The weeks turned into months until, one day, wagons arrived to cart them away again.

"This time we were taken to Belsen. It was a big camp with huts on stilts. The first thing I remember thinking was how dirty it looked.

"There were so many people there from many different countries, so we didn't understand each other.

"We adopted a kind of sign language to help us - and by the end of the war I could speak eight languages, though not fluently.

"The main thing people did inside the camp was try to find loved ones. We had all been separated but because there were so many people in the camp, it was possible you would never find your family.

"I still don't know what happened to my parents. My family was in the hotel business before the war started, and when the Germans came with their wagons there were 29 of us, including grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. Only me and my sister survived."

Wiping a tear from her eye, this is the first time Toni takes a break from telling her story.

She glances over to an old photograph next to the fireplace.

"It's my mum and dad," she says.

The picture is the only thing Toni has left of her parents.

She doesn't know what happened to them; where they died, or where their bodies lay. She has no burial place to take flowers to. Instead, she talks to the picture.

"It may sound silly, but I like to talk to them. I pray for them and all the family I lost."

After searching for loved ones, the second most important thing Toni remembers is scavenging for food.

She continues: "We were so hungry so, one day, we came up with a plan. We knew the commanding officer kept rabbits in a hutch. As I was the smallest in my group, I was sent out to try and catch one of them so the others could cook it for us to eat.

"I remember that night very well. I managed to catch one of the rabbits, it was a big white one, and I wrapped it underneath my rags.

"I don't know how, but we managed to cook it and eat it, but the next day all hell broke loose. The officer wanted to know who had taken his rabbit but, of course, no one would own up to it as we were in it together.

"We were made to strip and stand in a parade, completely naked. When the officer saw me he looked at my stomach, which was covered in marks from where the rabbit had scratched me."

Toni was taken away by the soldier and beaten. Because of her injuries, she did not return to her hut for some time and the others were convinced she had been killed.

To this day, she does not know how she survived the beating and yet, as she reflects, she says: "I guess I was one of the lucky ones."

One of Toni's most vivid memories is how the prisoners were never called by name, only by number.

"I can remember my number as if it has been burnt into my head, it was 4739085.

"We were told if our number was called out we had to go to a certain hut where we could get a bath.

"You would see groups of people disappear into the hut and never return. We saw smoke coming from the bottom of the hut and there was an horrific smell - it was a gas chamber.

"My number was called several times, but by sheer luck I managed to avoid being seen by the soldiers.

"Life in the camp was getting worse. As the war progressed, it became clear Germany was starting to lose. Even though we didn't get any news we could tell things were starting to go bad for Hitler as the soldiers, the women guards and the Hitler Youth were becoming even more unbearable.

"That was until one morning when we heard lots of shouting and shooting. Before I knew what was happening, I was being greeted by English soldiers telling me I was free and I was bundled into an ambulance."

Toni was taken to a hospital in Switzerland and soon after was reunited with her sister.

She made the journey to England in the 1950s, where her memories followed.

"I thought when I came to England, it would be better. In many ways it is, for I have a wonderful family, but I still have nightmares and I still get frightened.

"I am scared this could happen again and I worry for my family's safety. I wanted to share my story now to teach the younger generations war is bad.

"I am approaching 80 and I don't want my story to die with me. If children can learn from this, it will have been worth it. It is important the truth is told."