Now aged 93, Shefi has been awarded the Federal Order of Merit by German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, with the medal presentred by the nation’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert.
The award can be given to Germans or foreign nationals for “special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellectual or honorary fields”.
The event was held ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, which this month will mark 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz.
Shefi recalled that he last saw his mother at the train station in Berlin as he fled for safety with other youth to England in 1938, after Kristallnacht on November 9.
His mother was transported to Auschwitz in 1943 and murdered by the Nazis.
He lived in Britain for several years, then in Canada and the United States before immigrating to Israel in 1949, where he enlisted in the IDF, married and started a family.
He escaped Nazi persecution on the Kindertransport shortly before the start of the war (Picture: International March of the Living)[Missing Credit]
He wrote a book on his experiences published in 2016, titled A Way of Fate: A True Story From the Kindertransport.
“Holocaust survivors must tell their story because we are the last generation that can testify to things firsthand,” Shefi has said. “During my life, I have done this with thousands of German students to whom I said that they are not to blame for what happened to us, but they are responsible for it never happening again.”
The nonagenarian is slated to participate in the annual International March of the Living, an education program that brings individuals worldwide to Poland and Israel to study the history of the Shoah. This year, it will take place on April 24.
“George is responsible for creating thousands of new young witnesses to his story who take responsibility for Holocaust memory and the need to fight antisemitism,” said Revital Yakin Krakovsky, deputy CEO of the International March of the Living. “We are honored that he will march this year in the March of the Living at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It will be an emotional and meaningful closing of a circle.”
