Edith and Renee were taken to Auschwitz, then to German labour camps and eventually the Belsen concentration camp, where they were when it was liberated by British forces in 1945.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | Survivors recall Lodz ghetto horror

The Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook were to blame for having advised the Queen to bestow the honour, said Arthur Titherington, Chairman of the Japanese Labour Camps Survivors Association.

BBC: PoWs' anger at Akihito honour

His Ethiopian counterpart, Meles Zenawi, the prime minister, has meanwhile written to the leaders of 15 countries, accusing Eritrea of holding 30, 000 Ethiopian citizens in 15 slave-labour camps in different parts of the country.

ECONOMIST: Eritrea

Roman Halter was taken to Auschwitz and Stutthof concentration camps, then a German labour camp.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | Survivors recall Lodz ghetto horror

Through Mr Taylor's prosecutions of doctors who carried out experiments in the camps, of industrialists who employed slave labour, the world heard of the worst depravities of human behaviour.

ECONOMIST: Telford Taylor