Lily Ebert, 100

Release time：2024-05-08 18:25:43 Source：International Identities news portal

A 100-year-old Auschwitz survivor has emotionally declared the Nazis 'did not win' as she celebrates becoming a great-great grandmother. 

Lily Ebert, who was recognised for her services to Holocaust education and made an MBE on the New Year Honours list last year, has gone from 'near-death at Auschwitz to creating five generations of Jewish life'.

Her great-grandson, 20-year-old Dov Forman, took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share an emotional picture of Lily with her daughters and grandchildren. 

The wholesome snaps, which have already racked up over 20,000 likes, showed Lily beaming as she held her newborn great-great grandchild. 

The caption read: 'This week, my great-grandma, Lily Ebert, a 100-year-old Auschwitz survivor, became a great-great-grandma. 

100-year-old Auschwitz survivor Lily Ebert, becomes a great-great-grandma and revealed the 'Nazis did not win'

''I never expected to survive the Holocaust. Now I have five beautiful generations. The Nazis did not win!'' From near-death at Auschwitz to five generations of Jewish life.'

Many rushed to the comments to congratulate Lily on the very special family moment. 

One person said: 'Wonderful. Congratulations to Lily, to her little great-great grandchild and to the proud parents. The joy on her face is uplifting. 

Another said: 'What an uplifting story! Blessings to the remarkable Lily Ebert and all generations of her family.'

Someone else wrote: 'Actual tears seeing this. Please tell your great grandmother her smile gives us hope. Shabbat shalom.' 

A fourth wrote: 'This is wonderful!!! the most beautiful story I've read in the last months. It brings hope, and hope is what we most need in this dark hours. Mazal Tov to grandma Lily, may God grant her many more years with good health ve ahava.' 

Lily, who became a founding member of the UK's Holocaust Survivor Centre, and her grandson have accrued billions of views on TikTok in an effort to educate the younger generation on the Holocaust. 

After receiving her MBE at Windsor Castle she said: 'Not so long ago, there were people who wanted to kill me for my religion, and today I received this honour. Words cannot explain how much this means to me.

Lily Ebert, who was recognised for her services to Holocaust education and made an MBE on the New Year Honours list last year, went from near-death at Auschwitz to creating five generations of Jewish life

Her great-grandson, 20-year-old Dov Forman, took to X, formerly known as Twitter , to share an emotional picture of Lily with her daughters and grandchildren

'I promised myself that if I survived, then I would tell the whole world what had happened to us in Auschwitz - that there were people killed for no other reason than their beliefs, because we were believed not to be worthy of life.'

She said that she has always tried to be a positive force in the world and encourage others to 'appreciate our differences and learn from each other, and be kind to everyone.

'Something terrible like that should never, ever happen again. As long as I am alive I will teach the world to be tolerant', she added.

She also spoke about the importance of educating people through social media, in particular TikTok.

'I find (educating people through TikTok) very important because the youngsters really want to learn and they should learn,' she said. 'I don't speak only what I learn - I went through it.'

Lily was 20-years-old when she and her family were taken to Auschwitz on one of the last trains carrying Hungarian Jews to the camp in 1944, enduring months at Birkenau, before being transported to Altenburg, a sub-camp of Buchenwald.

Many rushed to the comments to congratulate Lily on the very special family moment

Her parents and some of her siblings were condemned to death in the gas chamber after encountering the infamous Josef Mengele, notorious for his experiments on those in the camp, while the remaining family members were put to work.

After being freed from Auschwitz, 78 years ago, Ms Ebert spent a year in Switzerland before moving in 1946 to Israel, then under British rule in Palestine.

She migrated to the UK in 1967 with her husband, Samuel, and began a life of educating the world about the horrors of the Holocaust.

Ms Ebert is now based in north London, and is a mother of three, a grandmother of 10, and became a great-grandmother for the 36th time in 2022.

The King wrote a foreword for her book, Lily's Promise, as Ms Ebert spoke about her appreciation for the monarch whom she has met on a series of occasions, including at one of his Christmas parties.

'He is a very special human being,' Ms Ebert said of Charles. 'It must be a very difficult job and he does it with such a love and understanding, that I thank him very much. I never thought that I would have the opportunity to thank him personally.'

She added that news of her MBE arrived via a letter and that the recognition is 'very special'.

'People are still here in this world and (are showing) their respect - what we (should) try to have for the whole community.'

Lily (pictured) was recognised for her services to Holocaust education at Windsor Castle last year after being included in the New Year Honours list - the first overseen by King Charles since his ascension to the throne

With the great-grandmother while she accepted the award was her great-grandson, 20-year-old Dov Forman (pictured)

Lily pictured with her siblings for the last time: This picture taken in 1943 shows siblings (L-R) Piri, Berta, Imi, Lily and Rene (another brother, Bela, is not pictured)

King Charles (then Prince of Wales) speaks with Lily Ebert at an exhibition of Seven Portraits: Surviving the Holocaust, which were commissioned by Charles to pay tribute to Holocaust survivors, at The Queens Gallery, Buckingham Palace on January 24, 2022

Mr Forman told the PA news agency that it was 'humbling' to witness his grandmother become an MBE.

'It is so humbling to be here today, together with four generations of my great-grandmother's family as she accepted her MBE.

'It was very moving to see the tears rolling down her face as she told the King that she never expected to survive the Holocaust, let alone receive an honour from the King of England.'

He added that the following they have gained on TikTok is partly to 'take a torch and pass it to others'.

'When you listen to a Holocaust survivor, when you listen to a witness, you become a witness,' Mr Forman told PA. 'And so every single person that hears our story on TiKTok... they learn the lessons of the past.

'So I'm incredibly honoured and humbled to have helped my great-grandmother go viral and provided her with a platform and every single day we get thousands of comments from across the world, from countries even where they are banned from learning and teaching about the Holocaust.'

Mr Forman spoke about his time visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site for the first time on January 19.

'I really tried to imagine my great-grandmother being there, in the same place that I was then standing... I was not able to comprehend how she survived such an experience,' he said.

'We must not hesitate to place responsibility upon the perpetrators who had anything to do with enabling the terrors that befell those like my great grandmother... Having said that, this is not the biggest risk that faces us today.

'Our biggest concern regards the third category of ordinary people within the scope of those involved in the Holocaust: the bystanders.

'We cannot allow ourselves to become bystanders - my work with my great-grandmother, and this trip (Auschwitz) have ingrained in me that it is up to us, those of the more recent generations, my generation, to make sure that we do not stand idly by as long as there is hatred in this world.'

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