‘Auschwitz was hell on earth. We must never forget its horrors’

“It was not a human place”: Auschwitz survivor Lily Ebert, centre, with sisters Piri, far left, and Rene
Ben Morgan24 January 2020

An Auschwitz survivor today urged the world never to forget the horrors of the Holocaust.

Lily Ebert, now 90 and living in Brent Cross, was 14 when she was sent to the Nazi concentration camp. She made the plea ahead of the 75th anniversary of its liberation, which will be marked by world leaders on Monday — Holocaust Memorial Day.

Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II–Birkenau were liberated by the Soviet Army on January 27, 1945. By then more than a million people — 90 per cent of whom were Jewish — had been killed at the camp. Mrs Ebert, her mother and five siblings were deported from Hungary in 1944 and forced onto a train to Auschwitz. When they arrived she was separated from her mother, her brother, and one of her sisters. She never saw them again.

She said: “Auschwitz does not belong in this world. It was something else entirely. It was not a human place. It was hell on earth. Today there are killings everywhere but the difference is the world still talks about the horrors of Auschwitz. They were so cruel. Even today humans are not put in gas chambers. It was killing on an industrial scale. Today they would think twice to even do this to animals.”

Mrs Ebert today

Mrs Ebert and her two surviving sisters, Rene and Piri, spent four months at Auschwitz before being transferred to a labour camp near Leipzig. At the end of the war they were given refuge in Switzerland. Mrs Ebert lived in Israel, where she married and had three children, before settling in London in 1967. She has worked with the Holocaust Education Trust for more than a decade.Mrs Ebert said: “I promised myself if by some miracle I survived I will tell the world what happened here. I will teach the youngsters that something so terrible should never be forgotten or ever happen again. I have kept that promise.”

The gold pendant she kept throughout the war

She still wears a gold pendant which her mother hid in the heel of one shoe. Shortly before her mother was led away at the camp, she managed to swap shoes with her daughter. Mrs Ebert kept it with her throughout the war. She said: “I don’t take it off. I think it may be the only piece of gold to survive Auschwitz with its original owner. It was a miracle I survived along with my gold pendant.”

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