Eva Lavi was 2 years old when the Nazis invaded Poland. Last week, at age 80, she addressed the United Nations, following International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Lavi is the youngest survivor from the famous “Schindler’s list,” the list of Jews saved by German industrialist Oskar Schindler as immortalized in the 1993 film. Lavi and her family were put in a ghetto in Poland following the Nazi takeover, after which they were transferred to a labor camp and ultimately to Auschwitz.
Given the diminishing population of Holocaust survivors, Lavi remains conflicted about how best to perpetuate Holocaust memory. She acknowledges that survivors’ stories are extensively documented but she is likewise aware that nothing is more powerful than a firsthand account.
Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon, who had invited Lavi to speak, called the speech an increasingly-rare opportunity for international diplomats to hear about the atrocities of the Holocaust firsthand.
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