#Auschwitz survivor to meet family of NYC soldier who liberated her

An Auschwitz survivor will have the chance to meet the children of the American soldier who liberated her — after her great-grandson tracked the family down using a banknote and social media.

Lily Ebert, 90, was 14-years-old when her family was taken from their home in Bonyhád, Hungary, and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, CNN reports.

While Ebert and her two sisters were selected to work in the camp, her mother, brother and another sister never made it out.

“Auschwitz was a hell,” she told the network. “Auschwitz was really a factory of death. The killing went on all the time…I hope nothing similar will ever happen again.”

Ebert and her two sisters were liberated in April 1945, when she was 16-years-old, while on a death march.

“We were liberated after a few days walking without food, without water, without shoes,” she told CNN. “When they liberated us, we wanted only to get in somewhere, sit down and sleep and we were so hungry and thirsty.”

That’s when an American soldier gave her a German banknote, with the message “a start to a new life” and “good luck and happiness” handwritten on it.

“He was the first person who was kind and wasn’t an enemy,” she said.

Ebert, who now lives in London and kept the kind note all these years, showed it to her great-grandson, Dov Forman, on July 4.

Forman, 16, decided to share the story and a picture of the banknote on Twitter, joking to his great-grandmother that he would find the soldier in 24 hours, CNN said.

The tweet quickly went viral and within 24 hours, the soldier was identified as American Jewish GI Private Hyman Schulman — thanks to a clue given at the bottom of the note which stated his position as “assistant to Chaplain Schacter.”

Sadly, the former soldier from Brooklyn passed away in 2013. But next week, Ebert and her great-grandson will virtually meet Schulman’s kids over Zoom.

“It means so much that we can now connect with the family,” Ebert told the network.