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‘Schindler’s List’ survivor to address UN

Eva Lavi, the youngest survivor of ‘Schindler’s List,’ will be the keynote speaker at the UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony.

By: Aryeh Savir, World Israel News

Eva Lavi, the youngest survivor of the famed “Schindler’s List,” will be the keynote speaker at the United Nations (UN) International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony next Wednesday.

UN Secretary General António Guterres, General Assembly President Miroslav Lajčák and Israel’s Ambassador Danny Danon, who invited Lavi to speak at the UN, will be among the dignitaries addressing the ceremony in the General Assembly Hall.

Born in Krakow, Poland in 1937, Lavi was two years old when World War II broke out. Along with her mother Fela, Lavi was first sent to the Kraków Ghetto, and then to the Auschwitz concentration camp and its adjacent labor camps. Lavi and her mother were subsequently placed on Schindler’s List.

When a Nazi officer stated that a young girl could serve no purpose as a weapons professional, Oskar Schindler claimed that she was to be given a specific task that only she, with her small fingers, could accomplish. The episode of her survival was depicted in the Oscar-wining picture with the same name.

Schindler, who was recognized by the State of Israel as a “Righteous Among the Nations” in 1993, is credited with saving over 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust. Lavi and her mother were among these survivors, and subsequently moved to Israel after their liberation.

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The UN ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day will be the culmination of 10 days of exhibitions, films, panels and briefings on the theme of “Holocaust Remembrance and Education: Our Shared Responsibility.”

“The entire international community must always honor the memory of the six million Jews whose lives were brutally cut short by the Nazis and salute the bravery of the men and women who so miraculously survived the Holocaust,” said Ambassador Danny Danon.

“Eva’s story is one of strength and resilience; it is one of will and determination.  These are the values that must always guide the Jewish people as we pledge to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive long after the last of the survivors are no longer with us,” Danon added.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day was designated by the UN in 2005 as an international day of commemoration and has become a part of the political and educational calendars in countries all over the world over.