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Holocaust survivor, 79, born at focus camp gates tells how she solely survived as a result of Nazis had run out of gasoline for demise chamber the day earlier than

A woman who was born at the gates of a concentration camp after her mother volunteered to follow her husband to Auschwitz has said she survived because of ‘luck’.

Eva Clarke, 79, was born at Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria on April 29 1945, one day after it ran out of gas for the gas chamber.

Ms Clarke’s father Bernd Nathan, who was German and Jewish, met her mother when he travelled to Prague to escape the Nazis.

The couple married in May 1940 and were among the first people to be sent to Theresienstadt labour camp as they were ‘young, strong and well able to work’, Ms Clarke said.

Speaking before Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday, she said the pair managed to survive in the camp for three years, a ‘remarkably long’ period of time.

Despite men and women being separated at the camp, her parents managed to meet and her mother became pregnant with Ms Clarke’s brother.

The Nazis considered becoming pregnant in a concentration camp a crime punishable by death, Ms Clarke said, adding that they made her parents sign a document saying when the baby was born they would be handed over for ‘euthanasia’.

Queen Camilla (right) speaking to Holocaust survivor Eva Clarke during a reception hosted by the Anne Frank Trust to mark Holocaust Memorial Day at the London Hilton on Park Lane

Queen Camilla (right) speaking to Holocaust survivor Eva Clarke during a reception hosted by the Anne Frank Trust to mark Holocaust Memorial Day at the London Hilton on Park Lane

Undated handout photo issued by the Holocaust Educational Trust of Eva and her mother, Anka (Nathan) Bergman

Undated handout photo issued by the Holocaust Educational Trust of Eva and her mother, Anka (Nathan) Bergman

Eva's parents, Anka and Bernd Nathan Bergman

Eva’s parents, Anka and Bernd Nathan Bergman

‘My mother never heard the word euthanasia. She had to go and ask somebody what it meant,’ Ms Clarke added.

Her brother was born at the camp in February 1944 but died two months later of pneumonia.

Of her and her mother’s survival, Ms Clarke said: ‘My mother always said luck had an awful lot to do with it, but at the end of September of 1944 their luck ran out, because it was on that day my father was sent to Auschwitz.’

Her mother, Anka (Nathan) Bergman, volunteered to follow her husband the next day because she had ‘no idea’ where he had been sent, Ms Clarke added.

‘Being the eternal optimist, she thought, well, as they had survived up to that point, she thought nothing could get any worse.’

‘She never, ever saw him again, and she heard from an eyewitness that my father had been shot dead on a death march on the 18th of January 1945, near Auschwitz, and it was liberated on the 27th.’

Of her brother, Ms Clarke said: ‘His death meant my life and my mother’s life, because had my mother arrived in the Auschwitz Birkenau death camp holding my brother in her arms, they would have both been sent straight to the gas chamber.’

While pregnant with Eva, her mother was sent to Freiberg forced labour camp near Dresden where she worked on the V1 unmanned flying bomb.

Pictured: Holocaust survivor Eva Clarke in an undated photograph

Pictured: Holocaust survivor Eva Clarke in an undated photograph

Eva Clarke pictured with her mother on her mother's 90th birthday. Both women survived a Nazi concentration camp

Eva Clarke pictured with her mother on her mother’s 90th birthday. Both women survived a Nazi concentration camp 

Holocaust survivor Eva Clarke pictured with her husband Malcolm Clarke on their wedding day

Holocaust survivor Eva Clarke pictured with her husband Malcolm Clarke on their wedding day

Ms Clarke said: ‘She was there for six months, becoming progressively more and more starved and more and more obviously pregnant, and that was very dangerous for her.

‘By the time the Germans realised she was pregnant, it was too late for her to be sent back to Auschwitz, to be killed, because Auschwitz had been liberated – so it’s another piece of luck.’

When the Nazis began to evacuate the camps, her mother was put on a coal train around the end of March 1945 and travelled for days with no food and hardly any water before arriving at Mauthausen concentration camp.

‘So when she saw the name Mauthausen at the station, she had such a shock because, as opposed to when she’d arrived in Auschwitz not knowing what that was, this time she knew and she started to give birth to me on that coal wagon,’ Ms Clarke said.

‘She had to climb off the coal wagon. I was born at the gates of Mauthausen. ‘

She continued: ‘There are three reasons why we survived, and the first is, it’s a very chilling reason, on the 28th of April 1945 the Germans had run out of gas for the gas chamber.

‘My birthday is 29th.

‘The second indirect reason why we survived is because Hitler committed suicide on the 30th, and the third and the best reason why we survived was because on the fifth of May, the American Army liberated the camp.’

Pictured: Eva Clarke. Her mother gave birth to her outside the gates of a Nazi concentration camp

Pictured: Eva Clarke. Her mother gave birth to her outside the gates of a Nazi concentration camp 

She later settled with her family in Cardiff, where she met her husband Malcolm Clarke in the 1960s. 

She later found out that her father-in-law, Kenneth Clarke, had been a RAF bomber flying in the Dresden raids at the time. 

This meant that among the civilians cowering below him in the strikes was the mother to his future grandchildren. 

‘Kenneth was absolutely devastated to realise he could have killed my mother and my mother was in tears when they realised the incredible coincidence’, Ms Clarke once said in an interview. 

‘When he said ‘I could have killed you’ my mother replayed ‘but you didn’t.’

Ms Clarke now travels the world speaking at schools and events about her experiences as a survivor and has worked with charities including the Anne Frank Trust and the Holocaust Educational Trust.