A HOLOCAUST survivor who managed to escape the Gestapo, before dangerously coming face-to-face with Hitler, recounted her devastating story this week.

Former nurse Hanni Begg, who lives in Guisborough, was out the day the Gestapo came for her siblings and took them to Auschwitz, who had until then managed to evade capture in their third-floor Berlin flat.

Her brother Max, eight and sister Ruth, six, died in the notorious Nazi death camp, but she stayed under the radar for the rest of the war. However, she had a heart-stopping moment when Adolf Hitler visited her school and she had to shake his hand.

Because the teenage Mrs Begg didn’t look Jewish, Hitler did not suspect anything and went on to shake the next child’s hand.

She was speaking about the horrific impact the Holocaust had on her family, at the opening of the Brundibar Arts Festival in Newcastle.

She could not say Hitler’s name while recounting the story.

The 87-year-old told the audience how as a teenager she nursed her father through tuberculosis after being reunited with him, but he died the day he found out the war was over, and had to bury him with her own hands.

In 1949, Mrs Begg was encouraged to travel from her home town of Germany to the United Kingdom to train as a nurse. This is when she met her future husband, Frank.

They later moved to Guisborough, where he worked as a GP, a role he continued for 30-years.

She talked about her love of classical music and her connection with the Brundibár Arts Festival, which runs in Tyneside this week.

She said: “I decided to speak at the Brundibár Arts Festival, as I’ve spent most of my life not talking about the past.

“I witnessed first-hand the near elimination of a whole human race from the Earth. I feel now is more important than ever before for us to talk about the atrocities of the Holocaust, to ensure that it never happens again.”

Now in its second year, the Newcastle and Gateshead-based festival aims to curate an annual programme of arts and music events that showcase the ‘little known music’ written during the Holocaust by victims and survivors.

Musicians have travelled from far-and-wide to perform at the Festival, from Switzerland to London and beyond. The events range from a wealth of music, song, spoken word, theatre, education workshops and lectures.