CORNING, NY (WENY) -- A Holocaust survivor shared her story to a packed crowd on Tuesday night at the Corning Museum of Glass. Tova Friedman was just five years old when she was taken to Auschwitz.

"Many times [I thought I was going to die]. But, I was a child and I thought that's the way it's supposed to be for Jewish children. I didn't despair, I didn't get upset, I thought 'That's life.' I knew nothing else and I was only one year old when the war broke out. So, I don't know life before the war," said Friedman.

In her presentation to hundreds of people on Tuesday night, she told the crowd what she remembered and what her mother told her about the Concentration Camp. She said before being taken to Auschwitz, her mother, father, and she lived in the Ghetto. She talked about how the Nazis first killed off the elderly and children because they couldn't work.

Friedman also talked about how the Nazis took children and how she had to hide in a crawlspace to avoid being taken. She was forced to hide until one day, her mother told her she could go outside. Friedman was told they were going to Auschwitz. She was only five years old when she and her mother were separated from her father.

Friedman said she and many others took cattle cars to get to Auschwitz. She said it took roughly 36 hours to get there and that there wasn't any food or water. Friedman also said everyone went to the bathroom where they stood.

When they got to Auschwitz, Friedman smelled smoke and was told by her mother that it was burning bodies. Then, they were forced to undress and the Nazis kept the healthy people for working purposes and killed those they deemed unhealthy.

Friedman said she survived because of luck, but also by following her mother's rules. She was taught not to cry, or look a Nazi in the eyes. While at Auschwitz, she survived numerous brushes with death.

"One [time] they took my whole barrack (all children) to the gas chamber. I thought we'd never come [back]. We knew what was going on, but they sent us back. That was sort of the big moment that I thought, 'That's the end,'" said Friedman.

Friedman said it's unclear to this day how and why she and many other children weren't killed in the gas chamber.

After surviving the horrible conditions of Auschwitz, on January 27th, 1945 at the age of six years old, Friedman and many others were liberated. Friedman and her mother were eventually reunited with her father. Friedman said she felt a mix of emotions once they were freed.

"It was very bittersweet because we were, of course, happy, but my mother got into a serious depression because she realized that nobody was coming back, none of her family. That made me very sad, all of us. It was bittersweet really, too, because then you had time to think and you realize how alone you're going to be for the rest of your life," said Friedman.

Friedman said she talks about her past to this day, to remember the over six million Jewish people who were murdered. She also said her presentations are a message for people to not let history repeat itself.

"I just want to say how dangerous it is to let injustice go/to just look away. Maybe they can leave the world a little better than they found it in some way [by hearing my story]," said Friedman.