“Seeing John hold his bear made it really hit home that he was just a child when he was facing the Holocaust in Hungary” Rankin

Holocaust Survivor John Hajdu describes life as a small boy in Budapest as Jews were rounded up & killed, and his parents taken to concentration/labour camps in World War 2.

He describes the fear of hiding in a dark cupboard as four-year-old, surviving in a cramped ghetto with little food and dead bodies on the streets, being forced to wear a Yellow Star, and finally escaping Hungary through a minefield with just his teddy bear & clothes given to him in Vienna.

John, now 85, finds it’s desperately painful watching history repeat itself in Ukraine.

He was honoured to be photographed recently by Rankin who said: “John’s bear is a tangible reminder that the stories we are telling happened in recent history and we must learn from these events – for a better future.” 

* Photographs by Rankin