HOLOCAUST Memorial Day was marked at a Saltburn care home with the lighting of 80 candles for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Residents, staff and volunteers at Hazelgrove Court joined the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust in remembering those imprisoned and killed.
Among the prisoners was Stanislaus Frelich, a former resident and the father of Lynn Walshaw, a volunteer Veteran Friendly Framework champion who now supports veterans living at the care home.
Stanislaus was serving in the Polish army when Germany invaded the country in September 1939. He fought at the Battle of the Bzura, when he was wounded in the leg and eventually captured.
He subsequently spent 11 months as a prisoner in Auschwitz before he was transported to another concentration camp, Flossenbürg, which was liberated by the United States army in 1945.
After the end of the Second World War, Stanislaus was relocated to England, where he eventually settled in Skinningrove and worked at the village’s Steelworks.
He met his future wife, Joan Robinson, when he went to watch her family band and the couple married in 1948. They had three children, Ken, Pat and Lynn. Joan passed away when Lynn was five years old.
After developing dementia, Stanislaus moved to Hazelgrove Court as a respite resident in 2005. He died in 2009.
The care home put together a memorial for Stanislaus as part of its Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations.
Lynn was also in attendance and brought a small statue of Mary, which she explained her dad bought and carried with him as a thanks to God that he survived Auschwitz.