Holocaust survivor receives book that belonged to her sibling who died in Auschwitz

euronews (in English)

A 99-year-old woman has been reunited with a schoolbook that belonged to her younger brother who was one of the 565,000 Hungarian Jews who died in the Holocaust.

Transcript

00:00 80 years since it was last held by a member of their family, a Bible belonging to a murdered

00:06 13-year-old boy passed back to his relatives, the only tangible link to the existence of

00:12 Bela Engelmann.

00:13 Look, he wrote his name in Hebrew.

00:16 Yeah, Engelmann. Is it?

00:19 Yeah.

00:20 Oh.

00:21 Benzion Engelmann.

00:22 Killed at Auschwitz in 1944, Bela wrote and stamped his name in this school book. Remarkably,

00:28 it survived, eventually to be unearthed by a Hungarian antique book dealer.

00:33 This is the only thing to show that he was alive. We have no birth certificate, there's

00:38 no photograph.

00:39 Nothing, just this writing.

00:41 Page, Bela.

00:42 Someone watched us on TV, wanted to learn more, then realised that their father actually

00:47 might have had books from Lily's family.

00:49 This German note, and he wrote on that.

00:53 Bela's older sister Lily, who survived the Holocaust, first began researching her past

00:58 three years ago with the help of her great-grandson, Dov. She was reunited with the family of the

01:04 American soldier who liberated her in 1945.

01:07 Nice to meet you.

01:10 Nice to meet you. So nice to meet you.

01:12 It is so nice to meet you. I can't believe it.

01:14 A viral post on Twitter led to Lily being reunited with the soldier's children.

01:20 Since that meeting and the coverage that followed it, incredible footage of Lily in 1945 has

01:26 also been uncovered by interested researchers.

01:29 I think this story, if you would have told me before it happened that it could happen,

01:33 I probably would have laughed and not believed you.

01:36 The success of the story brought Dov to Hungary on a mission to reconnect with his family's

01:41 past. Without the worldwide publicity, it's unlikely this book would have ever been found.

01:47 In Lily's hometown of Bonnyhad, only one Jewish person remains, a once vibrant community destroyed

01:53 by the Nazis.

01:55 You can't believe it, the fact that we meet you here today to receive this book is crazy.

02:02 In Hungarian, Zolt Brauer, sitting next to his wife Erika, said it's a miracle that this

02:07 book survived and we're happy to give it to Lily.

02:11 For our whole family it's so special.

02:13 Back in London, the book is brought to Lily, now 99, recovering in hospital following a

02:18 hip operation.

02:19 With his notes inside on some of the pages.

02:22 For the Jewish people it cannot be that it is, that it should be the end.

02:31 To be able to give her this tangible link to her brother's existence was so special.

02:35 Dov, who has family photos of Lily's older brother and younger sisters, would now like

02:40 to find a photo of Bela to add to the collection.

02:44 Luke Hanrahan, Euronews, London.

02:46 So, we'll see you guys.

02:48 (whooshing)

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