Lily's Promise: Holding on to Hope Through Auschwitz and Beyond--A Story for All Generations

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Reading about the Holocaust reminds us that in this jungle of humanity, humans are the worst when it comes to inflicting pain on each other. The phrase “Together we stand, divided we fall.” This sentence best describes how Lily and her two sisters managed to survive the cruel Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald. Ebert and Forman have collaborated with various departments of the UK Government (including the Department for Education, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) and in November 2020, they spoke at the UK Parliament in favour of the UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre. [8] Ebert and Forman have also appeared on international radio and television, giving interviews to over 180 news outlets in more than 35 countries.

Frazer, Jenni. "Arise, Sir Ephraim! Chief Rabbi leads record-breaking honours list for the community". www.jewishnews.co.uk . Retrieved 31 December 2022. The Nazis invaded Hungary in March 1944, and, in July 1944, when Ebert was 20 years old, she along with her mother, younger brother and three sisters were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. [1] Ebert's mother Nina, younger brother Bela, and younger sister Berta were immediately sent to the gas chambers, whilst Ebert and her two other sisters, Renee and Piri, were selected for work in the camp. [1]You have to do your best to survive. Of course. But it’s hard to survive alone. Your best chance of life come from working together. Rosa, Joanne. "Auschwitz survivor and great-grandson teach TikTok about realities of Holocaust". ABC News . Retrieved 10 February 2022. Holocaust Memorial Day: Portraits of last remaining UK survivors unveiled". BBC News. 27 January 2022 . Retrieved 27 January 2022. Ebert had three children, and now has 10 grandchildren and 36 great-grandchildren. Forman, who is 18, described “the queen of our family” as being “very much involved in everyone’s life, wanting to know what everyone is getting up to.” The two were always close, even before Forman launched Ebert into social media stardom (her TikTok account has 1.9 million followers), so it made sense that he would help her keep a promise to tell the world what she had endured. “Words can barely describe what happens next,” Ebert writes of the journey to Auschwitz. “But words are all I have.”

While other teenagers played video games and FaceTimed with friends, Forman recorded his great-grandmother’s stories — of hiding a beloved pendant in a piece of bread stashed in her armpit; of receiving a telegram from her long-lost older brother; of holding her first baby and missing her mother, who bravely lit candles in a field during their last Sabbath together. Ebert and Forman were awarded with the community award, from Andrew Neil, at the Jewish Care and Topland business lunch in March 2022, at the Grosvenor House Hotel. [18] Four months after arriving in the camp, Ebert and her two sisters were transferred to a munitions factory near Leipzig, where they worked until liberation by Allied forces from the Death March in 1945. [1] Post-Holocaust [ edit ]

In fact, the book’s title, Lily’s Promise, refers to a promise Lily made to herself on Yom Kippur in 1944: if she survived the Nazis’ brutality, she would not only tell the world her story. But she would also ensure that whatever happened to them wouldn’t happen to anyone again. Lily Ebert MBE BEM (born 29 December 1923) is a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor, living in London.