Teaching History Matters

So this orphaned little girl who was liberated on the train came to visit me in the USA, all the way from Israel.  My wife and I met her and Lynda, her friend from NYC, after they drove up from New York this week. When she came down to the lobby of the hotel, she just glowed. We had dinner at a beautiful place on the lake, and the next day a cruise on a ship on the lake, and then at my friend Johnny’s restaurant in Saratoga Springs, after they got a special tour of the Dance Museum in Saratoga from Sarah, Johnny’s daughter. Later in her tour, she traveled to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, where the staff were not only prepared for her  testimony appointment, her interviewer Ina also told her the date of her birth-June 15th- which she has never even known before! She was cooking dinner for her family in Israel in March, when the phone rang and she learned of this website and of this new chapter in her history, thanks to Varda W.

Hello, Matthew,

My name is Lily Cohen and I was a little girl who was on that train coming from Bergen-Belsen.  My name was Lili Kazimierski-Shein and I was an orphan, probably about 5 or 6 years old.  at that time.  I don’t know my birth day, or year.

I am so moved to find this research, as most of my early life appeared to be “erased” somehow by the Holocaust, and only now am I able to take small steps into what was my past to piece together fragments of memories.  I remember the train.  I remember the hill, I remember a German soldier running away, and I remember a woman who was trying to take care of me dying at my side.

How did I hear of you?  Varda  called me last evening, having found my name in a book by Hilda Huppert called “Hand In Hand With Tommy.”  Since it only mentioned my first name and the kibbutz where I was raised, she called the kibbutz!  Amazing how things can come together when there are people dedicated to finding out “the rest of the story.” Thank you for your dedication.

My life has turned into a really wonderful victory over Hitler’s attempt to obliterate the Jewish race.  Tonight I made dinner for 10 people in my home in Tel Aviv – 6 of whom came from me… You are really doing a holy work and I do hope to meet you some day.

TESTIMONY FOR LILY BY NIUTA Haya GUTKOVSKI 28 MARCH 1997

Matt Rozell, Lily Cohen, Lake George, NY June 24, 2010.

The first time I met her, Lily was approximately at the age of 2 or 3 in Bergen-Belsen.  I was told that she was there with her mother who died in the camp from Tuberculosis.  Lily was there with a “father on paper”.  His name was Schon, received at the time a Certificate for himself, his wife and daughter, for Palestine. His wife and daughter were killed, and he remained on his own with the papers.  Instead he listed Lily and her mother on his papers.  They arrived to Bergen-Belsen as a family.  As I heard, the Kazimierski family was very, very rich, and Lily’s mother, Madame Kazimierski paid him for the Certificate.  When her mother died, Lily remained with him in the men’s barrack, which was separated from the women’s barrack, but there was a connection between the two barracks and the two camps.  It was a special camp which was called ‘The Palestinians,’ because all the people had some kind of connection to Palestine.  I had a husband in Palestine.  We heard from the men in the barrack that Schon was abusing the girl, hit her, and ate her food (we only got only 200 grams of bread per day).  She was dirty, neglected and very, very miserable.  We had decided, Serve Celevachik who was the head of the Men’s camp of 350 people, and me, who was head of the women’s barrack of 70 people and children that we had to take the girl out of the men’s barrack.  At the end we decided that he would take all the things that her mother gave him, which was probably some jewelry and gave him food, our rations, and we wanted him to give the girl to us, for our care.  We got her in a horrible condition, dirty, neglected, full of lice, in very, very bad mental condition, with unstoppable crying and fears.  She did all her things in the bed.  In our barracks, Bronka Eiseman started to take care of her in a very devoted way.  She used to get up in the middle of the night for her, she managed to release some of the fears, she shaved her head, she took care of her, and practically ‘put her on her feet’ in a very limited way. And then another disaster happened to Lily.  The second one.  Bronka was sent to Vittel, which was a camp in France, and Lily stayed again without any shelter.  We tried to do the best we could.  We took turns to take care of her.  I loved her very much and made a contact with her which actually lasted until this very day. Then, in 1945, the Germans decided to transfer us to Theresienstadt.  That is what they told us.  We walked on foot more than 10 kilometers.  Lily, at that time, was probably 4 ½ years old.  We were 2,500 people, Germans, Dutch, Polish, etc.  Then they put us on the train. We were thinking this is the end of our troubles.  We were on the train, stopping and starting for probably one week.  On the way the train was bombed.  And Lily, who at that time was under the care of one of the women, again, stayed alone, because the woman was killed.  On the 13^th of April, 1945, finally the train stopped, the Germans ran away and the Americans came.  They took us to a German city that belonged to SS families by the name of Hilleslaben.   There, for the first time, we got food as we needed.  I was there only a few weeks and then I ran away. When I arrived to Israel, to Palestine I heard that Lily came on a children’s transport and ended up at Ma’ale Hachamisha near Jerusalem.  When I heard about it I started to visit her regularly, and that is how we stayed in touch all these years.