Belsen survivor: Thank you, Britain
HOLOCAUST survivor Evelyn Lipmann thanked Britain for its generosity, kindness and compassion after receiving a life-saving Covid jab.
The 96-year-old, whose dad was killed by the Nazis, witnessed unimaginable suffering in four concentration camps and a death march.
But after having the Pfizer vaccine in her adopted country she described being “overwhelmingly overjoyed”.
Her son Anthony 63, said his mother was “completely OK” despite a bout of tiredness.
He said: “My mother, survivor of Leopoldstadt, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz,
Belsen and Salzwedel, who received sanctuary in Britain in 1947, received the Pfizer vaccine in Walton town centre. Thank you Britain.”
He added: “I think it’s remarkable that out of all the people to have received the vaccine she has been singled out to receive it in the first few million. I am so grateful to Britain for continuing to look after my mum.”
Born in Vienna, Austria, to Fritz and Lily Guttman, Evelyn was taken out of school at 11 when Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their rights.
The family was placed in the Leopoldstadt ghetto where she had to sew German uniforms for more than 10 hours a day.
They were then moved to the Theresienstadt camp in the Czech Republic.
And from there to Auschwitz, but she survived by lying about her age. Her father was gassed almost on arrival. Evelyn and her mother survived and set up home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. Lily later married a local man, Eric, and had two children.
Daughter Kate Gill, who took Evelyn to her vaccination, said she was “eager”, “but it was a bit stressful at the same time”.