New Year’s Eve was extra special for Freddie and Freda Knoller as they marked their platinum wedding anniversary with a Zoom celebration with members and volunteers of Jewish Care’s Holocaust Survivors’ Centre.

Long-time HSC members, the happy couple were also joined on the call by their daughter Susie, who said:  “Seventy years is quite an achievement and they are very much in love. Thank you to everyone at the Holocaust Survivors’ Centre for celebrating this special day with my mum and dad. It’s been a lifeline [and] it’s so important to them. 

Mr Knoller, who will be 100 in April, thanked his daughter for organising the celebration and everyone for their good wishes.

Susie Knoller said her parents had married in Baltimore, Maryland, where they had met on a blind date “After one month they were engaged and were married after two months. It was love at first sight.”

Vienna-born Mr Knoller survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen and has shared his story with thousands through talks and books. His wife is from the UK and the couple moved to England in 1952 because she was homesick. They have another daughter, Marcia.

Mr Knoller's recipe for a happy and lasting marriage? "Continued love. Love your partner, that's all that matters."