Mala Tribich MBE spent the war in hiding in Poland & then in Ravensbrück & Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. All her family except her brother were murdered. Today she is a powerful Holocaust educator.

Talking about my experiences was a very gradual process. One of the first times was a Jewish club. The man who ran it—he was a teenager then—was very enterprising to have asked me. People weren’t even thinking of asking survivors to speak then. It was very early. He just felt there is something to learn and he asked me to speak.

People generally started speaking in 1981. There was a reunion of people who'd been in Auschwitz together. There they used to discuss things & plan for after the war. They said if we survive & we're free, we’ll all meet again. So that reunion took place in Israel in 1981.

When I came back, a Jewish group I belonged to organised a meeting—we used to have meetings in people’s houses, we weren’t a very big group. But when I got back, they organised this meeting & actually booked a hall. So many people turned up. People were interested. 

Before no one was talking & no one asked—liked to ask, so it just stayed silent for all those years. The odd talk here & there. So that’s when people really started talking about the Shoah. I said I wouldn't speak, but I did. And a friend spoke as well. It started from there.

Sometimes I didn't want people to know that I am a survivor. We didn't call them survivors. I don't know what we called them. It just seemed so horrific & so out of normal life. I didn't ask to speak, ever. But once I was talking about a camp & this woman made this funny face. Like: oh, dear, how awful. But it was a response that made me realise she really hadn’t a clue because people wouldn't respond like that if they knew. It’s much more than 'oh dear', you know. So many aspects of people’s reactions & what people felt & said & how they said it. Now it’s come to a point where it’s an established thing. People know about it, they teach it at schools, it’s something that can be discussed. But at the beginning it was just weird.

Sometimes I felt I didn't want people to know that I was in a concentration camp. If people asked me, where do you come from, sometimes I used to say: Sweden, sort of not fully understanding or pretending not to understand that where you come from isn't where you’ve just arrived from, but where you were born. So I said it quite innocently actually. 

I've sorted it all out [laughs] in time but I had very mixed feelings. I didn't even tell my husband's family, because it wasn’t a subject for discussion. No framework for talking. It was painful, not just for me. People were so horrified. 

Then books started coming out. People learned that way. The schools came much later & when they came, they didn't use it because it wasn’t compulsory. It was on the curriculum but they weren’t obliged to teach it. So now it is compulsory, so it’s different.

But I don't think of myself as a survivor. I don't like to be branded as something. I’m a lot of other things as well. An ordinary human being. Talking about what happened isn't therapeutic for me but it also doesn't damage me or disturb me. It keeps it alive for me. It’s just part of my life. 

But I'm very motivated. I think it is so important for people to hear the story. It’s not about me. But I think it desperately needs to be told. People need to know & maybe some of them will be affected in a way to actually become active about it & do something about antisemitism. 

It matters that it comes from me. If you're hearing something secondhand, well, it’s second-hand. Sometimes when I speak I really have tears in my eyes but I never cry with tears, no matter how tragic or terrible. My eyes fill with tears but they don't come down my face.