“Someone whose father had an antique shop had seen my great-grandmother and me on Hungarian TV and recognised the surname, bought the book, and got in touch with me,” Forman said.
“It’s very rare that a book like this would survive from then. Nazis wanted to destroy Jewish life and all Jewish existence. There’s no grave of Bela, or any other possessions, just this book. It is the only link we have to him."
While in Bonyhád, Forman was able to pray in a synagogue that still stands in the town, even though there are no longer any Jews, and visited the grave of his great-great-grandfather – Lily’s father – who died in 1942 before the Nazis invaded Hungary.
“Lily doesn’t have memories of the book itself, but her sister in Israel who is still alive remembers it and specifically the blue stamp on the cover.
“When I brought it back from her town of birth and showed it to her, she had two reactions,” he continued.
“First, she burst into tears. She said the Jews of Bonyhád will never be forgotten and the Nazis will never succeed. A few moments after that I think the emotional weight set in and she became just so happy to have it.”
Lily's brother Bela Ebert was 13 and had just celebrated his bar mitzvah when he was sent by train with his family to Auschwitz-Birkenau in July 1944. Bela was committed to his Jewish faith and refused to eat during a day of fasting, even as he travelled by train to Auschwitz, where he, his sister Berta, and mother Nina were murdered almost immediately.
“Bela was adamant about not eating, even after his mother insisted that he should, not knowing how long their journey [would] be or when they might have their next meal,” Lily’s great-grandson Dov Forman, 19, told the JC.
“They had very little food at all, just one last piece of bread. His mother tried to get him to eat it, but still he resisted and reaffirmed his commitment to fasting.”
The book will remain in Lily’s possession as she recovers in hospital from a recent fall.
The Shoah survivor received “tens of thousands” of prayers before and after going into serious surgery under general anaesthetic last week.
“She is recovering well. She is a survivor,” Forman said.
As one of Lily's 36 great-grandchildren, Dov co-authored Lily's Promise: How I Survived Auschwitz and Found the Strength to Live with her, released in 2021.
Earlier this year Lily was awarded an MBE by King Charles for her services to Holocaust education.
