Everyone has that one moment and one person whom you can never forget about no matter how much time has passed.
For Lily Ebert, that special someone was an American soldiers that she met while on a death march during the last days of the Second World War.
The 90 year old survivor who currently lives in London remembers that day as if it happened yesterday. However, she only just recently shared with her great-grandson a precious memorabilia that she has saved since that day – a German banknote with a warm message.
Ebert was given this warm banknote by one of the American soldiers who liberated Ebert’s group while they were on a death march. On the note, the soldier wrote “A start to a new life. Good luck and Happiness”.
The brave survivor recalled how this soldier was one of the first human beings that she has met since the holocaust began that did not treat her as an enemy but rather expressed the inherent kindness that is present within all of us.
Ebert was only 14 when the Nazis took her entire family to Auschwitz after they were arrested in modern-day Hungary. While she and her two sisters were selected to perform labor, her mother, sister and a brother lost their lives in the infamous concentration camp that she remembered as a living hell.
She was 16 when the three sisters were sent on a death march. As the name implicates, the prisoners were asked to keep on marching without being given even the basic supplies such as shoes, food or water.
Ebert recalls how everyone was half-dead after marching for a few days without being given anything, especially since they had lived and worked in terrible conditions in a concentration camp.
After Dov Forman, her 16 year old great-grandson shared this story on Twitter, the post went viral. Within 24 hours, the soldier who showed the kind gesture was identified as Hyman Schulman, a Jewish American GI.
Unfortunately, Schulman had already passed away 7 years ago while his wife also joined him just recently. However, Forman got in touch with Schulman’s children and has arranged a virtual meeting between the Schulman family and his great-grandmother.
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