Have your barf bag handy ..
Please watch this:
Ovadia Baruch was born in Salonika in 1922 to a family of eight children. They lived in the Jewish neighborhood of Baron Hirsch, and he and his sisters studied at a Hebrew school.
In June 1942 Hitler's racial laws were applied to the Greek Jews and their neighborhood became a ghetto.
On 15 March 1943, the ghetto residents were ordered to buy one-way train tickets to an unknown destination, and the following morning they were loaded onto cattle cars, 100 per compartment, without food, water, or amenities.
Seven days later they arrived at their destination. The doors were flung open, and search lights were thrust into their faces. SS soldiers awaited the passengers shouting, whipping them, and throwing them onto the platform. In the confusion, Ovadia lost his family members and never saw them again. Initially — due to the language barrier and the uniforms worn by the inmates - the Salonika Jews thought they had been taken to a mental asylum, not Auschwitz.
Following their arrival, Ovadia was among a group of young Greek men who passed Mengale's selection and were taken to Auschwitz I. They were immediately sent to work, but not knowing German, they had difficulty understanding instructions and were constantly beaten.
Due to the hard labor, harsh conditions, and constant torture, only five of the group survived, and it was decided that they should be murdered. 
However a young, German-speaking Greek prisoner, Ya'akov Maestro, saved them, insisting that their professional skills could be utilized. The lie was quickly exposed and Ovadia was beaten.During one of his most terrible beatings — having been caught stealing food — Ovadia screamed out in his mother-tongue - Ladino: "Ho, Madre," (Oh, Mother).
A young prisoner from Salonika, Aliza Tzarfati, heard his screams and recognized the language. Ovadia fell in love with the beautiful young woman and for the next three months they exchanged notes. In his final note Ovadia wrote: "If by chance we are released, we will marry."
In January 1945 Ovadia was sent on a death march to Germany via Dachau, Mauthausen, Gusen I, Gusen II, and Melk, and [b]on 5 May 1945 he was liberated by two American soldiers who brought him to a hospital. [/b]
On his recovery, Ovadia was taken to Mauthausen and placed with other Greek former prisoners,
and in the summer of 1945 he returned to Greece. Ovadia's family's house in Salonika had been bombed, so he set up temporary home in the synagogue with other survivors.
As other Jews began to return to the city, lists of survivors were compiled and posted, and he was overjoyed to locate Aliza's name. Ovadia wished to marry Aliza immediately, but she was unsure, as in Auschwitz she had been subjected to medical experiments, which had left her sterile.
However Ovadia was not dissuaded, and he agreed to Aliza's condition that they immigrate to Israel. Soon after, they married and immigrated illegally to Palestine in a fishing boat.
They settled in Hod Hasharon and after some time — to their surprise — Aliza conceived. The Jewish doctor who had operated on her in Auschwitz had mercifully left her with one ovary — an act that had cost him his life 
. Aliza gave birth to a boy, and after some time, a girl.
Aliza died in 1994. Ovadia has five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Holocaust Survivor Testimony: Ovadia Baruch[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daeuW6c_so0[/youtube]
(
0,35 Please note what he says here about his first meeting with his future wife--Jerzy )
The Return to Life - "May Your Memory Be Love""May Your Memory Be Love" - The Story of Ovadia Baruch
In March 1943, twenty-year-old Ovadia Baruch was deported together with his family from Greece to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Upon arrival, his extended family was sent to the gas chambers.
Ovadia struggled to survive until his liberation from the Mauthausen concentration camp in May 1945. While in Auschwitz, Ovadia met Aliza Tzarfati, a young Jewish woman from his hometown, and the two developed a loving relationship despite inhuman conditions.
This film depicts their remarkable, touching story of love and survival in Auschwitz, a miraculous meeting after the Holocaust and the home they built together in Israel.(Where are the apples?---Jerzy)This film is part of the "Witnesses and Education" project, a joint production of the International School for Holocaust Studies and the Multimedia Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In this series, survivors recount their life stores - before, during and after the Holocaust. Each title is filmed on location, where the events originally transpired.
With the generous support of the Adelson Family Charitable Foundation.
Israel 2008, 47 minutes, DVD (unrestricted region)
Hebrew with English subtitles.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/educa...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... Acb8H-amfE(
3,05- I met her at factory where we were both working...-Jerzy )
................................
Ovadia Baruch - Arrival at Auschwitz[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OBRw_LiFnY[/youtube]
............................
Ovadia Baruch - At the Jewish Museum and Synagogue in Salonika'Here in Saloniki we had
49 synagogues ..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... 8nY2U&NR=1..................
"The Nazis soon forced the Jews into a ghetto near the railroads and on 15 March 1943 began the deportation process
of the city's 56,000 Jews to its concentration camps.[94][95] They deported over 43,000 of the city's Jews in concentration camps,[94] where most were killed in the gas chambers. The Germans also deported 11,000 Jews to forced labor camps, where most perished.[96] Only 1,200 Jews live in the city today."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki49 synagogues for 56 000 jews.
Not bad...
Jerzy
