And he kept in touch with the heroic Bielskis after the war. Tuvia Bielski, played by Daniel Craig in Defiance, sometimes stayed at Jack's London home and Jack would visit him and Tuvia's youngest brother Aron, portrayed by George MacKay, when he was in New York.

"It was very important that Defiance was made - people need to know that the Holocaust was not all about Jews being sent to their deaths, it was also about Jews who put up a fight," Jack told the Jewish Telegraph.

Born Idel Kagan in the town of Novogrodek, Jack said there was no antisemitism there until around 1935.

He explained: "It started when Poles from the western part of the country arrived in the area and continued with the Nazis."

Novogrodek Jews numbered more than 6,000 before the Holocaust, but once the Nazis arrived, they quickly set about implementing their antisemitic policies and rounded up the town's Jewish men, women and children.

Jack said: "The Belarussian and Polish gentiles were given orders to kill Jews. They were mainly young people and had inherited their hatred from their parents."

Jack, left, with friend Tevia Niankovski in 1944

His mother, Devorah, and sister, Nechama, were among the 5,000 Jews killed by the Nazis.

Jack, aged 13, was one of the remaining 900 Jews who were placed in a ghetto in May 1942.

Jack managed to escape at the third attempt.

He explained: "During one of my attempted escapes, I suffered severe frostbite and had to have my toes amputated.

"We soon realised that the Nazis would kill everybody in the ghetto, so we made our plans to escape. We decided to dig a tunnel 250 metres long to the other side of the barbed wire.

"Digging started in the second week of May with an aim of moving two metres a day."

Jack said the tunnel gave him hope. He added: "We had heard the stories about a Jewish partisan group organised by the four Bielski brothers who had refused to submit to the Nazis and had gone into hiding in the forest.

"They gave us hope and would provide a place to run to if we could get out of the camp."

It took five months for them to escape, but during that time, Jack found out that his father, Yankel, who made saddles, was being sent to another camp.

He was later killed while trying to escape from there.

Jack and the other escapees eventually reached a forest where they spent five days.

"We found a group of people speaking Yiddish who took us back to their base. Tuvia Bielski was the leader of their group of partisans.

"He was a great man and the only Jew I ever met who could out-swear and out-drink a Russian.

"Zus was the strongest one - everybody feared him - and Asael was a strong recognisance man."

Every Jew in the group had a job and Jack's was to make nails out of fire.

The Bielski group committed acts of sabotage against the Nazis and they stayed in the forest until Poland's liberation in July 1944.

Jack recalled: "On the last day of the war, the Nazis broke through our defences and there was a big fight. They were all killed."

He and cousin, Dov Cohen, who also joined the Bielskis, returned to Novogrodek, but the town was destroyed.

Dov went to then-Palestine and Jack moved to England. He returned to his home town for the first time in the early 1990s.

He said: "I always swore I would never go back, but I did, after the fall of the Soviet Union, in 1991.

"I am pleased that I returned and I have been there seven or eight times since.

"They have a museum and you can still see the tunnel that we dug."

Jack admitted it was a moving experience for him to watch Defiance.

He continued: "I recognised the names of a few of the characters in the film, as well as the Bielskis.

"I took my family with me to see it and it was emotional for me, but there is nothing special about me - it was a time of survival."

Of the four brothers, Asael was killed in the Red Army, but after the war Tuvia and Zus moved to Israel.

They lived in the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon and worked as drivers.

Tuvia emigrated to New York where he died in 1987 and youngest brother Aron still lives there.

Married to Barbara for 53 years, with three children, 10 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, Jack has penned a book, Surviving the Holocaust with the Russian Jewish Partisans and talks about his experiences at schools, colleges and universities.

He said: "I do not think every day about what happened to me, but I can never forget it."