For a man that saw most of his family murdered and spent his teenage years at a Nazi concentration camp it is strange to hear Martin Izbicki describe himself as lucky.

But Mr Izbicki is a survivor.

He survived the occupied Jewish ghettos in his home town of Izbicki, he survived the cattle train to Auschwitz, he survived the death marches and the Holocaust.

Millions of his fellow Jews, including his parents, four of his five brothers and two sisters did not.

He said: “I’m always on the right side of luck during the war; in the right line, having the right job.

“I never got sick – which would have meant execution – and that was a piece of luck in itself because the condition were so terrible.”

Food was scarce in the Jewish ghettos and with a large family to feed Mr Izbicki volunteered for the Nazi work camps.

It turned out to be a trick and after just a few weeks at a camp in Poznan, Mr Izbicki was forced with thousands of other prisoners on to a cattle train headed for Auschwitz.

The sanitary conditions were “unbearable” and when the doors finally opened at the gates of the notorious death camp the carriages were littered with bodies.

He said: “You cannot describe what it is like to travel for several days like this with corpses all around you. I was lucky to get there alive. Many didn’t.”

Shortly after arriving at the camp Mr Izbicki ran into his older brother Tevye who got him a job as carpenter – a slice of “luck” that meant he was selected for work rather than the gas chambers.

Having survived four years at Auschwitz, he and his brother were forced to march towards Germany as the Nazis attempted to conceal the horrors of the death camp from advancing Allied troops.

They were finally rescued by Russian soldiers in Czechoslovakia.

He said: “I was lucky to survive but looking back on that time I have nothing but misery. Not one day can I remember us laughing or joking.”

Following a short stay at an Austrian rehabilitation centre, Mr Izbicki parted with his brother, who headed for Israel, for a new life with distant relatives in the East End of London.

The brothers would never see each other again as Tevye contracted leukaemia and died not long after leaving Austria.

However, shortly after arriving in Britain a serendipitous twist of fate led him to the woman with whom he would have a family of his own.

Mr Izbicki, whose English surname is Bennett, said: “My brother was the hero of my life. He saved me. When we parted it was the saddest time for me and then when he died that was it for my family.

“But then I met Priscilla. She sent me a message saying she wanted me to come to her house.

“But it was not me that she wanted to meet but another boy called Martin. But she got me!”

Over 60 years, half of which spent running a clothes shop in Cheam, two daughters, and three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren later the pair are still happily married.

Now, as he prepares for a week of talks and workshops with pupils from schools in Kingston in the run up to Holocaust memorial day, Mr Izbicki admitted the horrors of Auschwitz still haunt him.

He said: “I did not sleep last night. When you live your life you do not have time to stop and think about what happened but today coming here it brings it all back.

“This is why it is so important that I come here and talk to young people so that something like this can never happen again.”