It was almost spring, when the Gestapo came for them.

The Gronowskis had planned to escape through the back garden if the worst happened. But they were taken by surprise, sitting at the breakfast table sipping coffee and spreading jam on bread, when the doorbell rang.

“The door opened and two men shouted ‘Gestapo. Papers’,” recalls Simon, who was aged just 11. As the Nazis entered their small flat, his mother, Chana, and older sister, Ita, turned pale and started trembling. After examining Chana’s ID card and passport, he confirmed her fears.

“You have been denounced,” he said, curtly.

It was March 1943, almost three years into the Nazi occupation of Belgium. As Jews, the Gronowskis had left their home six months earlier and gone into hiding in a different part of their home city of Brussels. But the Nazi’s secret police had tracked them down.

Just a child at the time, Simon had no clue his family were to be deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau – the notorious death camp where the Third Reich carried out mass murder with brutal efficiency.

As the soldiers shouted at them to pack their bags, Simon grabbed his beloved scout uniform and followed his family into the unknown. Pointing at her young son, Chana asked: “The little one too?”.

“Yes,” they replied. “The little one too.”

After their arrest in Belgium, they were held in a former army barracks in the neighbouring city of Mechelen. This was was Belgium’s only transit camp, a holding place for Jews and Romani before their deportation to the extermination camps.

The living conditions were wretched. A hundred men, women and children were crammed together in each room, forced to sleep on hay mattresses on rickety wooden bunks. Nobody knew what fate awaited them. The word “Auschwitz” was never mentioned, says Simon. “The Nazis told us that Jews must go away to work, in labour camps.”

A month later, Simon and his mother were informed by the SS that they would be leaving the next day by train. Ita, briefly protected by the Belgian citizenship she had proudly claimed on her 16th birthday, wasn’t on the list that day.

The next day, Simon and Chana were loaded on to one of 34 train wagons alongside 1,600 other prisoners. Nobody knew their final destination, they all thought they were going to work.

When the 11-year-old was escorted out of the barracks, he found himself standing “between two rows of soldiers all carrying rifles, leading right up to a train wagon which seemed enormous, as I was very small. I climbed in with my mother and 50 other people”.

Inside the wagon, there was straw on the floor, no seats and barely any light inside. “I was still in my little world of cub scouts,” says Simon. “I didn’t know that I had been condemned to death and that this train was going to transport me to the place of my execution.”

But this was one of the convoys which sent more than 25,000 Jews from Belgium to the death camps between 1942 and 1944.

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During the journey, the train came under attack from the Belgian Resistance. Three young fighters halted the train and managed to help people escape. Cowering in their carriage, Simon and his mother held their breath.

Once the train started moving again, the door of their carriage, possibly damaged in the raid, slid open. As others leapt down, his mother told him to follow.

Jumping down, Simon heard soldiers running in his direction, firing guns and shouting. When he dared to look back, he saw that soldiers had caught his mother before she could jump.

“I jumped from the train to obey my mother. If she had told me to stay then I’d have never left her side and I would have died with her in the gas chamber,” says Simon. “I adored my mother. She sacrificed herself to ensure my escape.”

Terrified, Simon ran for his life. He spent the night in the woods before a local Belgian family gave him refuge. Eventually he was reunited with his father, Leon, who was in hospital at the time of their arrest having suffered a breakdown. On his release, he was sheltered by friends.

Three days later, Chana was dead. Murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, the camp where the Third Reich perfected its methods of mass murder.

By the end of the Nazis’ four and half years in control of the camp, they had killed more than a million people – the majority of whom were Jews.

Six months later, Simon’s sister, Ita, also lost her life at Auschwitz.

On Monday, around 50 survivors will join an array of international dignitaries including King Charles, France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Polish President Andrzej Duda to remember the day Soviet soldiers liberated the camp 80 years ago.

In total, an estimated 6 million lost their lives in the Holocaust, one of the greatest crimes in history. Today, Simon is concerned by what he sees as rising antisemitism and the growing popularity of far-right parties and populism in the US and Europe.

“I fight against the extreme right and antisemitism, because I was a victim of it. The extreme right is a pathway to hatred,” he says.

America, the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands are just some of the countries which reported a rise in antisemitic incidents in the year following the October 7 2023 attack.

A “disregard or disrespect for democracy” is fuelling the popularity of “antisemitism, racism and other forms of hostilities” in Europe, says Professor Stefanie Schuler-Springorum from the Centre for Research on Antisemitism in Berlin.

“We have to be on the alert,” she warns.

The 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation will be for some the final time they attend a major anniversary event and bear witness to the crimes committed.

It’s for this reason, Simon wants to share his memories of the horror he witnessed.

“My mother gave me life twice. When I was born, and the day of my escape,” he says. “I want young people to know about the cruelty of yesterday, to help defend our democracy today.”

Siobhan Robbins reports from Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland with Sophie Garratt, Europe news editor, and Serena Kutchinsky, assistant editor for premium content

Elon Musk made a surprise appearance at a far-right campaign event in Germany where he urged supporters to move beyond their “past guilt”.

Speaking via video link to a hall of around 4,500 Alternative for Germany (AfD) supporters in the central city of Halle, the world’s richest man said: “It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.”

Mr Musk caused outrage last week after making a gesture at Donald Trump’s inauguration which many compared to a Nazi salute.

At the rally on Saturday he made an apparent reference to Germany’s Nazi past, saying “children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great grandparents”.

He added: “There is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.”

Speaking in favour of the far-right party, Mr Musk told the crowd: “I’m very excited for the AfD, I think you’re really the best hope for Germany. Fight for a great future for Germany.”

It was the second time in the last two weeks Mr Musk has publicly spoken in support of the anti-immigration, anti-Islamic party, which has been labelled right-wing-extremist by German security services.

He previously hosted AfD leader Alice Weidel in an interview on X, raising concerns of election meddling.

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Tens of thousands protest against far-right

Meanwhile tens of thousands of anti-far right campaigners protested in Berlin and other German cities on Saturday.

A huge crowd at the capital city’s Brandenburg Gate sang anti-fascist songs and carried banners denouncing the AfD.

It comes after the three-party governing coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz collapsed last year.

The opposition centre-right Union bloc is currently at the top of pre-election polls, followed by the AfD – but mainstream parties have declared they will not work with the far-right party.

Mr Musk’s mounting support for the AfD will likely raise further concerns about election meddling and the surging popularity of the far-right in Germany.

Storm Eowyn was “probably the strongest” to hit the UK in at least a decade, according to the Met Office – and in some areas was the most intense in “20 or 30 years”.

But don’t expect settled weather because Storm Eowyn has gone, Sky News meteorologist Dr Chris England warned.

“The Spanish-named Storm Herminia will bring heavy rain, gales and hill snow up from the South West on Sunday and on Monday,” he said.

“It won’t be as windy as Friday, but with trees and structures already damaged in places, there’s a greater risk than normal with a storm of this intensity.”

Latest weather updates

More than a million people in the UK were left without power, and there was significant travel disruption across the UK and Ireland.

On Friday, a 100mph gust was recorded at Drumalbin in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, and parts of Ireland had the highest windspeeds since records began, getting up to 114mph in Mace Head, County Galway.

As of around 5pm on Saturday, SP Energy Networks in Scotland said 28,000 customers were still cut off.

In Northern Ireland, 140,000 homes and businesses remained without power and across the Republic of Ireland, around 460,000 had no power.

Check the forecast in your area

A Cobra meeting was held on Saturday to discuss Storm Eowyn and the government will “stand ready to provide further support”, a spokesperson said.

Engineers have been dispatched to Northern Ireland and Scotland, they said.

Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney has appealed for “patience” as work is carried out to restore power supplies and transport services in the storm’s aftermath.

On Friday, people all over Scotland were urged to stay indoors to avoid injury in hurricane-force winds, as a rare Met Office red weather warning was issued for much of the south of the country.

Among the buildings affected was a Co-op store in Scotland which collapsed on Friday after Storm Eowyn passed through Denny, Falkirk.

Man killed by falling tree

A man who died in County Donegal after a tree fell on his car during the storm has been named as 20-year-old Kacper Dudek. The incident happened around 5.30am on Friday at Feddyglass in Raphoe.

Police forensic collision investigators are carrying out a full examination of the scene.

What’s the forecast like for the next few days?

Although the storm has now cleared the UK, it will remain windy in the coming days, with “numerous yellow wind warnings” in place, the Met Office said.

Saturday into Sunday

A yellow warning for snow and ice runs from 6pm on Saturday to 10am on Sunday and covers large parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland, with a yellow wind warning from 6pm on Saturday to 6am on Sunday for the Highlands and Strathclyde.

Sunday

A yellow wind warning has been issued for parts of North West England, South West England, Northern Ireland, Wales and southwest Scotland, running from 8am until 3pm on Sunday.

“Winds are likely to gust 50 to 60mph quite widely, and around some exposed coasts and hills, gusts to 70mph are possible,” forecasters said.

Also, a yellow warning for heavy rain which may lead to local flooding will be in place from 8am on Sunday until 6am on Monday.

The warning was issued on Thursday and covers the East Midlands, West Midlands, North West England, South West England, East of England, London, South East England and Wales.

“Quite widely, 10-20mm will fall, with locally nearer 30-50mm over high ground,” said the Met Office.

Monday

For the start of the week, a yellow wind warning lasting from 6am on Monday to 6am on Tuesday has been issued covering the East of England, London and the South East, and the South West as well as much of Wales.

Gusts of 60 or 70mph are possible near the coast, with potential gusts of 50mph inland, said the Met Office.

Some coastal routes, sea fronts and coastal communities will probably be affected by spray or large waves.

The agency added that some disruption to transport and short-term power outages were likely.

There is also a yellow warning for heavy rain from 6am to 11.59pm on Monday that could bring “some disruption and flooding” in the West Midlands and much of Wales.

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Bus and rail services will likely be affected and spray and flooding on roads will probably increase journey times, the Met Office said.

Flooding of “a few homes and businesses” is likely, as is “some interruption to power supplies and other services”.

Heavy rain means 20mm-40mm will probably fall “fairly widely” while higher ground could see 50-70mm.