| Holocaust Memorial Day | - Holocaust Memorial Day is on 27 January
- The date is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Union in 1945
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Mayer was 13 years old when he was taken from his family and sent to a labour camp in Poland in 1940. He spent the remainder of the war in nine labour camps, including Auschwitz, the biggest concentration camp in Europe. Over one and a half million people died in that camp alone, most of them Jewish. Mayer vividly remembers his time there. "When we arrived at Auschwitz, we were forced to get undressed, tattooed with a number and from then on we were known only by this number.  | | Shoes taken from the inmates of Auschwitz |
"We had no soap or water and we were starved. We looked like skeletons. Dr Mengele would perform selections to pick out who was going to die that morning. A colleague standing next to me who was picked turned to me asked 'why was I picked out, I do not look any worse than you do?' "We comforted him with the only truth that we understood, and told him 'Your suffering has finished now. Ours will go on a bit longer and soon we will end up the same way.' "I don’t know how I got through it. This is something I will never know." A new life in Manchester| "I hope that by sharing my experience that one day we can create a society free from hatred." | | Mayer explains why he feels it's important to share his story |
When the war ended, Mayer was rescued by Allied forces and, after hospital treatment, was brought to England to recover from his ordeal in a hostel on Windermere, before starting his new life in Manchester. Mayer set up his own tailoring business in Manchester but today he is involved in Holocaust education, speaking at schools, colleges and universities across the North West about his experience. Freeing society from hatred"About thirty years ago a client of mine, who was a teacher in Rochdale, asked me to speak at his school," Mayer explains.  | | A watchtower through the barbed wire at Auschwitz |
"For a long time I couldn’t think about what happened to me. It was too painful. But then, like many other survivors, you start to feel guilty. You wonder why you were saved and not your family. "So I decided to share my story because I want to keep their memory alive and to remind people of what hatred has caused and still causes today. I’ve experienced much hatred in my life and I hope that by sharing my experience that one day we can create a society free from hatred." | 
