This toothbrush is an everyday object in name alone. It was made by a woman called Lily while she was a prisoner in a concentration camp and as we approach Holocaust Memorial Day, it reminds us of her story of survival.
Born in Vienna in 1898, to a middle-class, secular family, Lily longed to become an artist. In 1919, she applied to the Vienna Art Academy, but the institute’s director told her she would only be let in if she converted to Catholicism, which she refused. She describes this incident as the only antisemitism she experienced in her youth.
At the age of 21, Lily married Ernst, and moved with him to Prague. His family was significantly wealthier than hers, and when she set up home in the Czech capital she acquired a governess, parlourmaid, cook and driver. She also tried to enrol at the Czech Art Academy, but this time it was her husband who put paid to her dreams. He asked her to stay at home and within a year she had the first of their two children.
In 1939, those children would travel alone to Britain on the Kindertransport: the couple were desperate to get their children out of mainland Europe.
