-vny his name is michael bornstein.w jersey and tells his story in schools. >> i was i was prisoner. b1148, i don't know if you can see this tattoo >> the girl that girl in the back row, 9 yrs. old.number a-60989. ruth muschkies webber, from michigan.84 now. did you, as a child there, understand what was happening at auschwitz? >> the woman told me that gave me the number, that if i don't don't behave myself i'll go up in smoke. >> ruth weber, ruth webber, michael bornstein. they were among the 200 or so survivors who went back last month to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of auschwitz. fewer and fewer of them left. they sat in a tent covering their ground zero. the spot where the railroad tracks ended, where the cattle cars filled with people stopped. >> this truth about the holocaust must not die. >> it was an elegy, a lament for the dead. 1.1 milln auschwitz. most of them jews. mainly, they were herded into gas chambers. and then incinerated in adjoining crematoria. efficiently, as many as 6000 a day. aus

. >> reporter: and in that photo with tova, on the far right, michael bornstein, who was in the infirmaryhe survived, too. and years later they would meet, and he's about to turn the corner again. >> hey, tova, how are you? >> reporter: the only reason michael is here is because he was in the infirmary when the soviets arrived. you were saved by sickness. >> that's right. >> reporter: michael's mother, like tova's, always told him the truth. she would always say, this, too, shall pass. his father was killed. his mother was sent to another camp. but he and his grandmother would survive. and months later, walking through their old town, they spot his mother, who had made it back from that labor camp. >> my mother, just disbelief, because she never thought she would find me again. >> reporter: her son was alive. >> yes. >> reporter: his mother would save all of her money, and when he was a teenager she gave him a watch which he carries with him today. >> on the back it has hebrew letters that stand for, "this, too, shall pass." >> reporter: those words from his mother again, thistoo, shall p

. >> reporter: michael bornstein, lois, ready too. then, the bus in poland, one hour to auschwitz.ed, they slowly walked through that gate. and we were waiting for the survivors who shared their stories with us. we will never forget tova putting to words why they all went back. >> that we didn't forget them. that i remember the little girl going into the crematorium, and she wouldn't come back, that i played with. >> reporter: you remember that. >> we remember. >> reporter: there was david marks, who had never gone back. >> but now i'm getting -- in my life. >> reporter: he rarely talked about what had happened to him, but at 91 he told me while in auschwitz, now it's different. >> they should know what happened. they should know that never again. >> reporter: and it was tova who bravely went inside the crematorium. she told us why, saying it's important that the generations that follow see this too. and while inside, she offered a prayer for the dead. >> we should say a prayer for all these people who went in there. >> reporter: and there was lois, who carried with her the same me