In the camp I was matured Fabian by age. I had to go up very fast. I wasn't a child.

I had to go up very, very fast. I wasn't a child anymore.

This is a remarkable story of survival.

You get used to a lot of things which you think you couldn't get used. And the dead bodies in the end we

didn't see them anymore and we didn't smell them anymore. A story of strength and of fierce determination.

It is not a sad story what I'm telling you.

It is the story of experience and plenty of hope and courage because once you give up hope that

you wouldn't make it you were dead fit in two days.

I'm Mike Lynchin and in this program on the BBC World Service I'll be

hearing the story of a small group of mostly Dutch Jewish children who live

through the hell of the Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen.

They were found malnourished, diseased but alive by the British Army who liberated the camp in

April 1945.

Hetti Vercondam is one of the Belson children.

She is now 88 years old and she spends much of her time speaking about her ordeal in the camp, where more than 50,000 other prisoners perished.

Alongside Hetti, I'll be piecing together the story of what happened to her and the other youngsters, the children

of Belson.

I'll be listening not just to head his memories and thoughts today, but also to what she said to a BBC reporter when he interviewed her in the camp

just shortly after liberation more than 70 years ago. Nowadays the original site of the Bergen-Belsen camp here in Germany is a peaceful place to visit. There's no sign of the

original barracks, the guard posts or the SS buildings or the piles of bodies, just

tall trees and open fields dotted with headstones and monuments that read,

here lie 5,000 unknown dead, here lie 2,500.

...