“Of 800 girls who were taken on a death march to the Baltic Sea, only 50 survived. In March 1945, we escaped.

“As we ran through a cornfield, we saw a farmhouse in the distance. We were very sick and starving, but we had survived this horrible experience together. The last time we saw our father, he told us that we were young and maybe G-d would let us live.”

Ilse was 21 years old and Ruth was 18 years old.