Screenshot: TikTok/lilyebert
by ASHLEY CARNAHAN CONTRIBUTOR
A 97-year-old Auschwitz survivor was targeted on TikTok after she posted a video wishing her followers a restful Shabbat (Sabbath), according to Business Insider.
Lily Ebert, a survivor of the infamous death camp, wished her followers a “lovely, peaceful weekend” to honor the upcoming Sabbath. She was soon bombarded with antisemitic comments. “Happy Holocaust,” “Peace be upon Hitler” and “Ask her if she thinks the treatment of Palestinians reminds her [of] the treatment she got in the camps,” read some of the comments, according to Business Insider.
https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6964806217579400454?lang=en-US
Ebert’s great-grandson and the account’s administrator Dov Forman wrote on Twitter that they have “continued to receive messages of hate.” The TikTok account is dedicated to asking questions and sharing answers about the Holocaust.
Forman added that he and his grandmother would not let “vile antisemitic abuse” stop them from educating younger generations about the horrors of the Holocaust. “Hate only breeds hate,” he wrote.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said that between May 7 and May 14, more than 17,000 tweets could be found using variations of the phrase, “Hitler was right,” according to Business Insider. The United Kingdom, where Ebert lives, has seen a roughly 500% increase in the number of reported antisemitic incidents since May 8. Nearly a third of the incidents took place online, according to the Community Security Trust (CST).
Ebert was liberated from Auschwitz after being transferred to an ammunition factory in Leipzig, Germany, in 1946, according to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.
Ebert encouraged her TikTok followers to be more tolerant, saying, “it makes no difference what the colour of your skin is and what nationality you are because one thing is for sure, for all humans our blood is red, and when you cut us, it hurts.”