Lily was made an MBE by King Charles at Windsor Castle in 2023 (Image: PA)
Tenderly cradling her beloved great-great grandchild in her arms was Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert’s greatest act of revenge.
After being rounded up and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp by the Nazi regime during the Second World War, the joyous moment she got to meet Raphael was one she never imagined living to see.
Lily was born on December 29, 1923 in Bonyhád, Hungary.
In July 1944, aged 20, she was sent to the extermination factory in Nazi-occupied Poland, where her mother and younger siblings were murdered.
Somehow prisoner A-10572 survived and Lily went on to have three children, 10 grandchildren, 38 great grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild in a post-war life guided by the principles of hope and forgiveness.
Raphael was born just six months before her death on October 9 last year aged 100 and, as these pictures show, it was a moment to savour and rejoice and encapsulates good overcoming evil.
Despite her scarcely imaginable ordeal, Lily’s remarkable strength, courage and ability to find the good in all she met, marked her out as a beacon of hope. She was honoured by King Charles as a “trailblazing advocate for Holocaust education”.
Lily died on October 9 aged 100 (Image: Dov Forman )
Her great grandson Dov Forman, 21, said: “She survived Auschwitz and went on to thrive, welcoming, in her 101st year her first great-great-grandson which she said was the greatest revenge against the Nazis. We need her light in today’s world more than ever.”
The political researcher and academic co-authored the best-selling book Lily’s Promise with his great-grandmother, the family matriarch who was lovingly known as Safta and with whom he shared an unbreakable bond.
She was awarded an MBE for services to Holocaust education in 2023 after carrying her the “unimaginable loss” of witnessing state-sponsored death in the gas chambers.
Dov said: “Safta was the queen of our large, loving family. She rebuilt her life with faith and love, never asking, ‘why me?’. Her positivity continues to guide us through these difficult times.
“Over the years, Safta’s story touched hundreds of millions. She taught us the power of tolerance and faith, the importance of speaking out and the need to stand against prejudice.
“My great-grandmother went back to Auschwitz more than five times. For her it was an act of defiance, not revenge. She wanted to walk of her own free will where her family was slaughtered. On July 9, the day they arrived, her mother, younger sister, younger brother, and 100 members of her extended family, were killed alongside 14,000 others that day.
“It is impossible to comprehend. The only way to try and understand is to visit and see the scale of the operation – a factory built to make killing more efficient. The other is to listen to survivors’ stories.
“People think they are naive when they ask about the Holocaust but the truth is they simply don’t understand. And it is more important now, more than ever, they do.
“My great grandmother used to say that we are all different, but that’s ok because it would be rather boring if we were all the same, and when we are cut we all bleed the same colour and it hurts .
“Jewish people hoped anti-Semitism died with the liberation of Auschwitz and the end of the Second World War, but it did not. We only have to see the events leading up to October 7, 2023, and those which followed, to see that.”
The pair co-wrote a book about her experience of the Holocaust titled Lily’s Promise (Image: Getty Images)
Lily died a little over three months before the landmark 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on what is now Holocaust Memorial Day.
Such was her extraordinary life that the King paid tribute to her “extraordinary resilience and courage”.
Charles, who will be at Auschwitz on Monday as part of the British delegation, saluted a woman who “became an integral part of the fabric of our nation” and a “trailblazer for Holocaust education”.
He said: “As a survivor of the unmentionable horrors of the Holocaust, I am so proud she later found a home in Britain.
“She continued to tell the world of the horrendous atrocities she had witnessed as a permanent reminder for our generation – and, indeed, for future generations – of the depths of depravity and evil to which humankind can fall, when reason, compassion and truth are abandoned.
“Her extraordinary resilience and courage are an example to us all, which will never be forgotten.”
Lily settled in north-west London and was warmly welcomed by all she met.
Dov said: “In the last months of her life my great-grandmother was incredibly worried about the trajectory of anti-Semitism and felt echoes of the past and how she remembered the world she grew up in.
“She would have been so moved to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, but was desperate to ensure it is meant when we say ‘never again’. It is a reminder of where hatred, left unchallenged and unchecked, can lead.
“She just wanted people to simply understand that it is built up over years of indoctrination. What starts with words doesn’t end there.
“But she was also full of hope that better times will come. She survived hell on earth but became a beacon of hope to all she knew, because she saw the good in everyone.”