(JTA) — Lily Ebert, the Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who educated millions on TikTok and cultivated a late-in-life friendship with King Charles III, died Wednesday, Oct. 9 at her home in London. She was 100.
Ebert’s death was announced by her great-grandson Dov Forman, who helped make her into a social media phenomenon in her final years.
“In the face of unimaginable loss, Safta made a promise to herself,” Forman shared in a letter on behalf of the family, using the Hebrew word for grandmother. “If she survived that hell on earth, she would tell her story-not with anger, but with strength, dignity, and the determination to honor those who did not. Never has a promise been so profoundly fulfilled as hers.”
Ebert was 20 when she was deported to Auschwitz in 1944, where she was separated from her mother Nina, her younger sister Berta, and her younger brother Bela, who were all sent to the gas chambers. Lily and her two other sisters were transferred to a munitions factory in Leipzig and liberated in 1945. After the war, they headed to Switzerland and then to Israel shortly before independence.
Lily was reunited with her older brother, also a Holocaust survivor, in 1953, and eventually made a life in Britain, moving there in 1967. She gave testimony at museums and universities and co-wrote a book about her experience with Forman, one of 38 great-grandchildren among her descendants.
In addition to the great-grandchildren, Ebert is predeceased by one daughter and survived by a daughter, a son, 10 grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.
One of those great-grandchildren is Forman, with whom she co-created a TikTok account to educate social media users on the Holocaust and the prevalence of antisemitism. Forman was 16 at the time they created the account in 2021; it now has 2 million followers.
Over the years, the account featured Ebert showing off Jewish foods including challah and rugelach, celebrating various Jewish holidays and, crucially, telling and retelling her Holocaust story, often in the form of trends popular on the platform.
The account also documented as Ebert grew progressively weak, including over the course of several hospitalizations. After each, Forman would triumphantly report her return to health.
On her 100th birthday last Dec. 29, the account quoted Ebert as saying, “I never thought I would survive Auschwitz. Now I celebrate 100 surrounded by my large and loving family. The Nazis did not win!”
Ebert’s followers included members of the British royalty. Just after her 99th birthday in late 2022, she was honored by King Charles III as a Member of the British Empire for her work in Holocaust education. The following year, when she turned 100, the king sent flowers for her birthday.
“It was with the greatest sadness that I heard this morning the news of Lily Ebert’s death,” the king, who wrote the foreword to her book, shared in a statement. “As a survivor of the unmentionable horrors of the Holocaust, I am so proud that she later found a home in Britain where she continued to tell the world of the horrendous atrocities she had witnessed, as a permanent reminder for our generation — and, indeed, for future generations — of the depths of depravity and evil to which humankind can fall, when reason, compassion and truth are abandoned.”
He added, “Alongside other Holocaust survivors she became an integral part of the fabric of our nation; her extraordinary resilience and courage an example to us all, which will never be forgotten.”
As Ebert’s presence on TikTok with Forman increased, the pair also faced antisemitism online. (The app’s critics say it is rife with unchecked antisemitism.) In May 2021, Ebert posted a message wishing her followers a “Shabbat shalom,” to which many users responded with antisemitic spam.
Acknowledgements of her death resulted in critical comments, too. A condolence note posted to Twitter by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the moderate Labour leader who worked to rid his party of antisemitism following a scandal, was inundated with replies accusing the prime minister — who is married to a Jewish woman — of holding a double standard given his administration’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas.
“You are complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. There will be survivors too,” one commenter wrote. “I hope they haunt you.”
Another commenter excoriated Starmer from an opposing perspective. “Yet you allow people who call for the death of Jews to have hate marches every weekend,” the commenter wrote, ostensibly referring to pro-Palestinian marches that take place in England. “She would have been disgusted with you.”
It was the kind of vitriolic discord that Forman and Ebert advocated against in their social media posts.
“Over the years, Safta’s story touched hundreds of millions worldwide, reminding us of the resilience of the human spirit and the dangers of unchecked hatred,” the family’s statement said. “She taught us the power of tolerance and faith, the importance of speaking out, and the need to stand against prejudice.”