Two Holocaust survivors who were friends during World War II were reunited thanks to their concentration camp tattoos.Shmuel Tzuk and Josef Shvyatovich met as teenagers in Poland’s Shanyov concentration camp in 1943.

Within months they were shipped to Auschwitz and separated, each assuming the other had died. As it happened, both immigrated to Israel.

Ma’ariv reported Thursday that the two were recently reunited in Israel when Tzuk’s wife, Hannah, met Shvyatovich and noticed that the Auschwitz tattoo on his arm was numerically close to her husband’s.

A tearful meeting followed.

“I am a little excited after so many years,â€? Shvyatovich, now 83, told Ma’ariv. “We were between life and death, and our meeting now is more than family.â€?