Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Kavita Puri with 3 million, the story of how at least 3 million people died in the devastating famine that swept through Bengal during World War II.

In this episode I'm in India to meet some of the last survivors.

Some of their recollections are disturbing.

I'm in Calcutta and it's strange really because it feels like an old friend. There is so much here that feels familiar.

I've heard so much about Calcutta while making this series about the Bengal famine, but this is my first visit here.

And I'm on the Choweringey Road, which was really busy back in the day, and it's still really busy now.

The city, known as Calcutta back then,

was transformed by war and famine.

It's a place so many of my interviewees talk about.

And everywhere I'm seeing places through their eyes and so it doesn't feel like I'm here for the first time.

Being here reminds me of the observers to the famine I've interviewed like

Partha Mitter, who was a, watched through the iron gates of his home,

as emaciated people streamed into the city from the countryside desperate for food.

It's those people who made that journey, the poorest and most vulnerable, that I haven't

yet heard from, who so often don't get to write history. That's why I've come to Bengal to find the last survivors before it's too late.

Their stories have never been broadcast before.

We said we hadn't eaten so the girl gave us two pieces of bread with jaggery.

When I think of my older brother I feel very sad I weep I still cry for him.

He took us to Kolkata he said if we lived here we would die of hunger. At least 3 million Indians who were

British subjects died in the Bengal famine during World War II. It's one of the largest losses of civilian life

on the Allied side. For the past year and a half I've been asking why is there no

memorial to them anywhere in the world.

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