unit About 757 ml for those who don ' t wish to click . <| sep |> My mother was in Auschwitz from May of 1944 until liberation by the Russians in January of 1945 . She was 13 when she went with her family . Her parents were immediately gassed on arrival one brother was shot while another died of typhus . My mother was big for her age so they put her to work mending the boots of soldiers . She was beaten and nearly starved . She developed a rash and was treated by Dr . Josef Mengele in the infirmary . By some miracle , his treatment actually worked and she was sent back to work . My mother used to tell me that during her early days in the camp , she used to smell roasting meat and thought that the SS cooks were making meals for the camp officials . She soon learned that what she was smelling was smoke from the crematoriums . In the weeks leading up to liberation , my mother heard rumors that the camp officials feared the advancing Russian army . On the morning of liberation my mother woke up in her barracks and found that all of the camp officials and guards had fled overnight . The prisoners were afraid to leave the camp because they feared the Nazis had laid a trap . The Russians rolled in later that day . My mother had a number on her arm until the day she died in 2006 . My uncle , her younger brother , still has his .