She describes herself as “only an ordinary woman”, but Eva Lavi made an extraordinary contribution inside the UN’s General Assembly Hall in January, fulfilling what she said was her God-given destiny, to bear witness to the evil of the Holocaust.

Ms. Lavi is the youngest survivor to be saved from the Nazis by the German industrialist Oskar Schindler — just a little girl when she was added to “Schindler’s List”.

Before reaching the relatively safe-haven of his factory in Czechoslovakia, she survived the horrors of the gas chambers in Auschwitz.

She was one of the two main speakers at the UN’s annual Holocaust Memorial Ceremony, which took place on 31 January at UN Headquarters in New York.

For this edition of our UN News Lid Is On podcast, she talks to Matt Wells about the vivid memories she has of escaping death; losing her childhood; building a new life in Israel, and never losing the sense of guilt that she lived, while so many millions died.

On her journey from Auschwitz to the UN’s main podium, she tells us “I owe it to God.”

Music excerpts taken from the 2018 Holocaust Memorial Ceremony, courtesy of The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme.