by Lily Ebert
First published 2022
Lily Ebert begins her memoir with a sacred vow made during Yom Kippur 1944 while imprisoned in Auschwitz. She swore to survive and tell the world what happened there. The book follows her path from a joyful Hungarian childhood through Nazi deportation to the concentration camp. At Auschwitz, she watched systematic brutality unfold while protecting her younger sisters Rene and Piri after their mother and two youngest siblings perished. Small gestures of defiance and compassion helped her endure a death march as the war ended. Upon liberation in 1945, an American Jewish soldier handed her a banknote marked with words of hope. Seventy-five years later, her great-grandson Dov tracked down that soldier's relatives through social media, bringing global attention to her experience. At ninety-seven, Lily works with Dov to connect across generations and honor her long-ago commitment to ensure such horrors never return.
Genres: holocaust, historical-fiction, 20th-century, autobiography, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, resilience
Setting: Auschwitz, Hungary
Period: 1944, 1945
320 pages · Paperback · HarperOne
Content warnings: death, violence