'One by one we watched innocent men being hanged': Incredible story of Jewish holocaust survivors

The Duchess of Cambridge with Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg and the Duke of Cambridge with survivor Zigi Shipper at the former Nazi concentration camp at Stutthof in Poland. Photo / Getty

The Holocaust survivors who met Kate and William returned to the Nazi death camp they were liberated from for the first time today and described the horror of seeing innocent people murdered 'one by one' in front of them.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge walked through the so-called death gates to the Stutthof concentration camp with Zigi Shipper and Manfred Goldberg, both 87, who were imprisoned there aged 14.

The lifelong friends have returned to the Nazi extermination camp for the first time since 1945 and were among 110,000 prisoners from 28 countries held there.

More than 65,000 would be murdered and more than a third of those victims were Jewish - but Mr Shipper and Mr Goldberg would survive and arrived in Britain in just their clothes without speaking any English, MailOnline can reveal.

Mr Goldberg said today: "Jewish lives just did not count. We had to assemble in a square. They had erected an enormous gallows with eight nooses hanging down, then one by one we had to watch these innocent men being hanged."

The friends were liberated in May 1945 by British tanks surrounding the barge on which they were about to be loaded - it was to be towed out to sea and then blown up with Jews packed into it.

In 1946 they both arrived on a ship to Hull and their only possessions were the clothes they were stood up in.

Zigi Shipper said today that William and Kate were "very moved" by what they saw at the camp - and the royals admitted they were 'very honoured' to meet the brave men.

He said: "You could see their faces. They were in pain", especially after they were shown the mountain of shoes belonging to the 65,000 people who died at hands of the Nazis.

Mr Shipper said he "most probably" wouldn't have returned to Stutthof if it wasn't for the royal visit but said he realised how 'important' it was to come back now he has returned.

He has returned to Auschwitz-Birkenau several times, where he was also held.

He said: "I asked myself many times 'why don't I want to go to Stutthof'. I don't know. But when I came I realised how important it was."

Zigi said that when he was a prisoner in the camp he was doing "nothing, no work at all".
He added: "We were just trying to keep warm, huddled together.

"Then after a while the inside people would go out so the outside people could get warm."

He said about the royal visit: "When a royal goes and it's put on the television or in the paper, people say 'why don't we go?'

"And that's what we want.

"People should know that it wasn't just Auschwitch-Birkenau, it wasn't just Bergen-Belsen, look at all the other camps."

The men returned to the Nazi extermination camp for the first time since 1945 and were among 110,000 prisoners - they told Kate and William about life there. Photo / Getty

He said he thought William and Kate were 'very moved'.

28,000 Jews were among the 65,000 murdered at Stutthof.

Both Mr Shipper and Mr Goldberg became friends there after the majority of their families were murdered.

Today they have spoken of the brutality of the Nazis they saw first-hand and described their hell to Kate and William.

Describing the comradeship between prisoners Mr Shipper said: "I said to my friends I can't walk, they said they'll help me, that was him and other people like that. Had it not been for them, I would not have been here today. I wouldn't have survived".

Mr Goldberg added: "If one of us got a bit more food than the other, we were able to share. None of us knew any morning whether we would still be alive that evening, quite literally life was a lottery."

The teenagers were taken in by Britain in 1945 travelling from Hamburg to Hull by ship - and neither could speak English.

Mr Shipper's mother was living in London and they had not seen each other since he was five. The 15-year-old found out he had a stepfather because he was waiting for him on the dock.

He said: "The first thing I remember him asking was 'Where is your luggage?' I burst out laughing and replied in Yiddish 'What I'm wearing is what I have with me!'

"We boarded a train and left for London arriving in the West End of London to my mother's apartment. I was a little apprehensive and didn't know what to expect. When we met it was very traumatic - both of us cried hugged each other".

These are the boots of 60,000 Jews who killed at the Nazi German concentration camp, Stutthof, during the second world war. Photo / Getty

Tragically he would later discover that his beloved grandmother died on the last day of the Second World War before she could become a free woman. His father also died in the war.

Describing his new life in Britain he said: "For the first six months all I did was go to the cinema, eat, drink, and sleep".

Mr Shipper said he learned English and trained to be a tailor but "hated" his job and struggled to make friends.

But his life changed one Saturday night after being invited to a youth club in Belsize Park and discovered many other Holocaust survivors attended.

Having lost most of his family in concentration camps he said they became his "brothers and sisters".

A few months later he met his wife Jeanette and they had daughter Michelle in 1956 and Lorraine in 1961.

The couple ran a deli and then joined his father-in-law's stationery business, which he worked in until his retirement.

He now has grandchildren and a great grandson.

He said recently: "Both my daughters are happily married and I have four grandsons and two granddaughters.

"You cannot imagine how I felt when my oldest grandson was Barmitzvah'd, when in his speech he said he would like to share his Barmitzvah with me as I was never able to have one of my own. I was able to share this with my 9 closest friends, also survivors like me who I have been together with for the last fifty or so years. Having no brothers or sisters, they are my brothers and sisters".

His friend Manfred Goldberg was nine and living in Germany when war broke out in 1939.

He, his mother and a younger brother spent the conflict largely imprisoned in various labour and concentration camps.

But after being freed he arrived in England in 1946 with his mother - but his younger brother was taken away by the Nazis and never found.

He also spoke no English aged 15 but by the age 24 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science and then spent his career in the electronics industry.

He married and had four children but for most of his life felt unable to speak about the horrors he saw in the war.

But Holocaust deniers and a rise in anti-Semitism made him upset and now regularly addresses schools across Britain.