Diary of schoolgirl who outwitted Nazi Angel of Death to become publishing sensation
The remarkable story of how a Jewish schoolgirl outwitted one of the most feared Nazis to escape the death camps is to be published for the first time next year.
In 1944 Helga Weiss and her mother were transported to Auschwitz, where they came face to face with Josef Mengele – the Angel of Death – who was selecting children and older women for the gas chambers.
Weiss, who was in her early teens at the time managed to persuade Mengele and the other guards that she was older than she appeared and her mother was much younger.
The subterfuge meant the pair were directed to the forced labour camp rather than the gas chambers and Weiss became one of just 10 per cent of children from the Nazi controlled Czech ghetto of Terezin to survive the holocaust.
After the war, Weiss became an internationally renowned artist, whose married name Weissova-Hoskova, is celebrated around the world....