Sam Laskier was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1927 into a traditional Jewish family. He recounts the Germans entering Warsaw in September 1939 and the formation of the Warsaw ghetto, where Jewish people were forced to live in appalling conditions. Although Sam was smuggled out of Warsaw to Ostrowiec, he was eventually transported to Bozochoff labour camp and then to Blizyn where he worked in a quarry. He was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Spring 1944 and was finally liberated by the Russian Army on 8 May 1945.

Sam was one of around 300 Jewish orphans who were brought to Windermere in England for rehabilitation. He later moved to Manchester and became an entrepreneur. He met and married his wife in 1956, and they had four children and five grandchildren.

Sam’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.