After that, the Jews became exposed to growing repressive measures by the Nazis as well as insults and assaults by the local population.

[3] After returning to Hamburg in the spring of 1939, Benjamin Landau was arrested by the Gestapo on September 1 of that year during the attack on Poland, as a "foreign enemy".

[3]On October 25, 1941, she was deported, at age 16, to the Łódź (Litzmannstadt) Ghetto with her mother and her younger sister Karin.

Karin, whom she took care of, was separated from her at age eleven in September 1942, deported to Chełmno extermination camp and murdered.

In August 1944, she was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where she was deemed fit to work during the selection process.

A few weeks later, when she went through another selection process, concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele sent her to the satellite camp Dessauer Ufer of KZ Neuengamme, where she was forced to perform heavy labour, working in construction and removing detritus from bomb damage.

In cooperation with the British forces, she identified 40 members of the SS as having worked in the Neuengamme concentration camp, leading to their arrest and trial before a court.

After receiving death threats, she moved to the United States, where she married another Jewish emigrant from Hamburg, Dan Eichengreen.

[4] According to her own account, she struggled to overcome the effects of the traumatic events of her youth and suffered from recurring nightmares.