Holocaust survivor Bob Narev sat down with Breakfast's John Campbell to talk about his experience on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
It's been 75 years since the largest concentration camp from World War Two, Auschwitz was liberated.
Mr Narev was six when he was sent to a death camp in the Czech Republic, both a death camp and a way station to Auschwitz.
Six million Jews were murdered, roughly one million at Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland. Many people, including most children, were gassed on arrival or shortly afterwards.
There were 230,000 children sent to Auschwitz. About 800 were gassed in a single day.
Mr Narev and his mother survived and came to New Zealand as refugees when he was 12.
"It's almost impossible to trace [the hate] back to anything other than the policies that the Nazis adopted. It was a demagoguery of Hitler, he just persuaded people that we were surplus to requirements and that we should be disposed of."
Mr Narev said his young age had protected him from truly understanding what was going on when he was separated from his parents in the death camp.
He said he remembers vividly the train journey he, his parents and both grandmothers were forced to take on their way to the camp.
"The one thing that I do remember is, at the railway station in Frankfurt, a Nazi officer came up to my father and asked him if he had any money on him. My father being an honest man said no, he was searched by the officer who found the equivalent of a 50 cent piece in his pocket, hit him across the face several times till his nose bled. That's the one thing as a six-year-old that I will never forget."
Mr Narev's grandmothers both died early in to their experience in the concentration camp unable to cope with the harsh conditions of the camp, while his father died lated due to complications from an operation he had during his time in the camp.
About 85 per cent of people who were sent in to concentration camps were murdered or didn't survive due to the poor conditions.
Mr Narev said even after they moved to New Zealand, his mother struggled with nightmares of their experience for the rest of her life.
"She was a strong woman but never got over what happened, had nightmares still for the rest of the days here but she survived and she coped."
Mr Narev went on to marry another holocaust survivor, having now been married 61 years since, they both spend their time travelling around visiting schools and talking about their experiences.
"The answer is in two words, information and education, we've spent the last few decades teaching, over a hundred schools about our experiences and the lessons I've learned from it in the hope at least some will see what can happen if people standby rather than actively oppose."
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