-With the Nazis retreating and the Soviet army in pursuit, Spiegel and the twins found themselves on their own at Auschwitz.

They faced the prospect of a long and dangerous journey back to their homes, uncertain if those homes even still existed.

-I don't think Zvi Spiegel had the idea of assembling the kids and taking them home.

He just wanted to go home himself.

But then we kids approached him and basically begged him to take us with him.

-First of all, he was able to speak quasi-Russian, and quasi a little bit of the Polish.

Says, "Take away because, if by any chance, the Germans turn around and come back, we will not make it."

-Spiegel kept a detailed list of the children in his charge as they set out into one of the coldest European winters of the 20th century, where temperatures regularly dropped well below freezing.

-We had no idea what this whole thing entails.

How're we going to go?

Are we going to take a train, a bus, walk?

No, I had no -- I had no concept of -- of what that meant.

-A day later, we started walking.

Two days and two nights, we walked, bitter cold and just walked.

-On the first night, they found an abandoned schoolroom and huddled in a corner to stay warm.

-Somehow he always found something.

Always was able to find something.

-The second night, a Polish farmer offered Spiegel and the boys shelter in a barn.

They lit a fire to stay warm.

But the straw they were sleeping on caught fire, sending the boys back into the relentless snow.

One day later, a Red Army convoy stopped beside the twins, and the commanders ordered their troops to transfer the children to Krakow.

The soldiers loaded the children into three army trucks.

The third truck had an accident, and one of the twins, Chaim Katz, was thrown from the truck and killed.

♪