Executive Council of Australian Jewry CEO Alex Ryvchin says Australian holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku, who has passed away at the age of 101, was a “beacon of hope and positivity” despite having endured extreme hardships.

“He was a remarkable human being; he just exuded this magnetism, this radiance, this hope,” Mr Ryvchin told Sky News Australia.

“And this is someone who survived the greatest evils that man has ever inflicted on man; he saw the most atrocious things imaginable.

He said Mr Jaku experienced ordeals such as being brutally beaten, his family home being destroyed and surviving Auschwitz, where both of his parents were gassed in the gas chambers.

“He survived so many atrocities, he saw so many things, he witnessed men throwing themselves onto the electric fence to end their suffering at Auschwitz.

“And yet somehow he emerged from it all, a beacon of hope and positivity and light, and he emerged as one of the most important model figures of our time."

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