81-year-old Holocaust survivor born in concentration camp shares her incredible story

TEL AVIV, Israel — In the last months of World War II, Lola Kantorowicz tried her best to hide her pregnancy.

She succeeded because most of the prisoners at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp had bellies that were distended and bloated from extended starvation.

As she went into labor in March 1945, the Russians were advancing through Germany, and Bergen-Belsen was in chaos.

Her daughter, Ilana, was born on March 19, 30 days before the camp was liberated by the British.

Holocaust survivor Ilana Kantorowicz Shalem holds a photo of her with her mother taken in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1946. AP

Now 81, Ilana Kantorowicz Shalem is among the youngest Holocaust survivors. 

She survived only because she was born when the Nazi leadership