Ms. Auerbacher’s father was a soldier in the German army during the First World War. He was wounded badly and awarded the Iron Cross for service to his country. He was a textile merchant and the family owned a large home.

Ms. Auerbacher played happily and lived peacefully until Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), Nov. 9-10, 1938.

Kristallnacht was triggered by the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew. In a co-ordinated attack on Jewish people and their property, 99 Jews were murdered and 25,000 to 30,000 were arrested and placed in concentration camps. Synagogues were destroyed and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked across Germany.

Ms. Auerbacher was only three years old, but her memories of the night are vivid.

Her grandfather was arrested in the synagogue while saying his morning prayers. Her father, grandfather and other Jewish males over the age of 16 were sent to Dachau concentration camp. Every window in their

house was broken. They had to hide in their backyard shed to save themselves from the rioting mob and their beloved synagogue was severely damaged.

This year, Ms. Auerbacher will commemorate Kristallnacht in Hamilton. On Monday, Nov. 9 at 7:30 p. m. at Adas Israel Synagogue, 125 Cline Ave. South, she will attend the screening of All Jews Out, a documentary tracing the story of her family from 1933 to 1945.

The film will be shown as part of Holocaust Education Week events in Hamilton Nov. 1 to Nov. 9.

“It’s important history does not repeat itself,” Ms. Auerbacher says of why she speaks about her experiences, adding that atrocities continue today in places like Darfur.

“If you do nothng, nothing will happen. If I’m going to be just a bystander, nothing will ever happen. It’s important to educate.”

Ms. Auerbacher’s grandfather and father were released from Dachau after a few weeks and her parents sold their house and moved in with her grandparents in 1939 in Jebenhausen. Here, Inge had many Christian friends. Her grandfather soon died, bitterly disappointed in the country he loved.

Ms. Auerbacher was only allowed to attend a Jewish school located a train-ride away. She was forced to wear a yellow Star of David as a six year-old child. Her school career ended after six months when the transports began. Her grandmother and other members of her family were sent to Riga in Latvia, where death by shooting awaited them; others were sent to Poland never to be heard of again.

Ms. Auerbacher and her parents were deported in August 1942. She was seven years old; the youngest in a transport of about 1,200 people to Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. She arrived clutching her beloved doll, Marlene.

Terezin was selected by the Nazis as a transit camp before inmates were to be deported to killing centres like Auschwitz. Its large brick barracks, underground cells and broken down houses were sealed from the outside world by high walls, wooden fences and barbed wire. She saw most of her friends sent to the gas chamber in Auschwitz.

Between 1941 and 1945, 140,000 people were shipped to Terezin; 88,000 were sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz and 35,000 died of malnutrition and disease in Terezin. Of the 15,000 children imprisoned in Terezin, Ms. Auerbacher is among the estimated one percent who survived.

The Soviet Army liberated Terezin on May 8, 1945. Ms. Auerbacher was 10. She and both her parents had survived. After a short stay in a displaced persons’ camp, they returned home to learn that at least 13 close relatives, as well as many more of their extended family had died.

Ms. Auerbacher and her parents immigrated to America in May 1946. She was very sick from years of malnutrition in the concentration camp and was hospitalized for two years.

Although she had lost many years of schooling she graduated with honours from Bushwick High School in Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1953. She completed a college degree in chemistry in 1958 and continued with postgraduate work in biochemistry. She worked for more than 38 years as a chemist.

More than 50 of her poems and articles have been published. In 1981, she wrote the lyrics to We Shall Never Forget, the only original song presented at the first World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Jerusalem in 1981.

Ms. Auerbacher has been lecturing on the Holocaust since then and has spoken to thousands of people in the U. S., Canada and Germany. She is the author of six books including, I Am A Star-Child of the Holocaust and Beyond the Yellow Star To America.

She now lives in Queens beside Muslim and Hindu families.

“We all get along. It’s what I strive for. I can’t talk about this if I don’t live it,” she said.

She says her main message to her audiences is to open your heart and stop hate.

“Get to know people who don’t look like you, don’t dress like you or don’t eat like you. What you don’t know, you fear. Love your neighbour as thyself.”