It is an image that has resonated with many people – the outstretched arm of a 93-year Holocaust survivor that bears his Auschwitz tattoo as he received his coronavirus jab from a British army medic.
The picture of Hershel Herskovic went viral after it was posted on Twitter by his son David, alias the blogger IfYouTickleUs, and was featured on BBC News on Thursday night.
From Darkness to Light - Private Maddy Oliver vaccinating my father in the same arm where 76 years earlier his Auchwitz number was tattooed
— IfYouTickleUs (@ifyoutickleus) January 26, 2021
וְגָאַלְתִּי אֶתְכֶם בִּזְרוֹעַ נְטוּיָה
And I will redeem you with an outstretched arm@NHSuk @BritishArmy pic.twitter.com/2nuZc31sbK
Mr Herskovic, who lost seven siblings in the Holocaust, survived concentration camps and death marches but then lost his sight from typhus after liberation. He survived coronavirus last month.
His son, a lawyer, tweeted the image with a quotation from the Torah, “And I will redeem you with an outstretched arm”.
The soldier who vaccinated him, Private Maddy Oliver, said, “Your dad is such an amazing man and has been through so much. I think it was just inspiring and it was so lovely that I got to vaccinate such a lovely man.”
David Herskovic told the BBC, “We think about the difficulties and the terrible tragedy that has befallen many people but yet there is plenty of hope and light in it, just as my father has always said, that there is light in his darkness.”
