Laura Hillman (born Hannelore Wolff; October 16, 1923 – June 4, 2020) was a German-born American survivor of

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

concentration camps A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploit ...

, including

Auschwitz-Birkenau Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

. She was also a '' Schindlerjude'', who survived the Holocaust with the help of

Oskar Schindler Oskar Schindler (; 28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was a German industrialist, humanitarian, and member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and amm ...

. She was also a writer and memoirist, as well as a lecturer on the Holocaust, and a

docent The term "docent" is derived from the Latin word , which is the third-person plural present active indicative of ('to teach, to lecture'). Becoming a docent is often referred to as habilitation or doctor of science and is an academic qualifi ...

at the

Long Beach Museum of Art The Long Beach Museum of Art is a museum located on Ocean Boulevard in the Bluff Park neighborhood of Long Beach, California, United States. The museum's permanent collection includes over 4,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, works on paper, ...

. In 2005, she published ''i will plant you a lilac tree – a memoir of a Schindler's list survivor'', a young adult book about her experiences during the Holocaust.

Life

Laura Hillman was born Hannelore Wolff in

Aurich Aurich (; East Frisian Low Saxon: ''Auerk'', West Frisian: ''Auwerk'', ) is a town in the East Frisian region of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Aurich and is the second largest City in East Frisia, both in popula ...

, Ostfriesland, Germany to a large Jewish family on October 16, 1923. As a teenager, she attended a Jewish boarding school outside

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. When she heard that her mother and brothers had received deportation orders, she requested that Nazi authorities allow her to go with them, knowing that she would receive one in the future. Her request was granted, but she was still separated from her family shortly after being deported to

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. 63 members of Wolff's family were murdered during the Holocaust, including her parents, Martin and Karoline Wolff, and her brothers, Wolfgang and Selly Wolff. Selly Wolff died after being beaten in the Budzyń concentration camp, a subcamp of

Majdanek Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had three gas chambers, two wooden gallows, ...

. Her two sisters, Rosel and Hildegard, survived the war, because they were living outside continental Europe, one in England and the other in the

Palestine Mandate The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British administration of the territories of Palestine and Transjordanwhich had been part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuriesfollowing the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in Wo ...

. Wolff was imprisoned in more than seven different labor and concentration camps during the Holocaust. Wolff and a Polish Jewish

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

named Bernhard "Dick" Hillman (born December 24, 1915), whose entire family was killed during the war, met at the fourth camp where Wolff had been sent, Budzyń. They were then sent to

Płaszów concentration camp Płaszów is a suburb of Kraków, Poland, now part of Podgórze district. Formerly a separate village, it became a part of the Greater Kraków in 1911 under the Austrian Partition of Poland as the 21st cadastral district of the city. During World ...

, where they both managed to get on the famous "Schindler's list", a list of Jewish workers who were spared from being sent to

death camps Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe, primarily in occupied Poland, during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocau ...

after the closure of Płaszów. Wolff, along with the other female ''

Schindlerjuden The ', literally translated from German as "Schindler Jews", were a group of roughly 1,200 Jews saved by Oskar Schindler during the Holocaust. They survived the years of the Nazi regime primarily through the intervention of Schindler, who affor ...

'' were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they spent a harrowing few weeks before Schindler managed to bribe Nazi officials into sending them to the relative safety of his camp, Brünnlitz, where Wolff and Hillman spent the rest of the war. They were liberated by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

on May 9, 1945. The couple was married by a Jewish

army chaplain A military chaplain ministers to military personnel and, in most cases, their families and civilians working for the military. In some cases, they will also work with local civilians within a military area of operations. Although the term ''cha ...

Erding Erding () is a Town#Germany, town in Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the Erding (district), rural district of the same name. It had a population of 36,469 in 2019. The original Erdinger Weissbier is a well-known Bavarian specialty. Erding is ...

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

on October 22, 1945. The couple emigrated to the United States, arriving in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

on January 4, 1947, and ultimately settling in Los Alamitos, California, where Hannelore Hillman changed her first name to "Laura". They had one son in 1954. Hillman was widowed in 1986 after her husband died of

heart disease Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is any disease involving the heart or blood vessels. CVDs constitute a class of diseases that includes: coronary artery diseases (e.g. angina pectoris, angina, myocardial infarction, heart attack), heart failure, ...

. In 2005, she published her memoir about her experiences during the Holocaust which is titled ''i will plant you a lilac tree – a memoir of a Schindler's list survivor''. The title came from a promise which her husband made to her during their time in the concentration camps, to plant her lilac trees like the ones which existed in her childhood home in Aurich. Laura Hillman died on June 4, 2020, in

Rossmoor, California Rossmoor is a planned census-designated place located in Orange County, California. As of th2020 census the CDP had a total population of 10,625 up from the 2010 census population of 10,244. The gated Leisure World retirement community in the ...

, aged 96.

Writings

* ''I will plant you, a memoir of a Schindler's list survivor''. Atheneum Books for Young Readers: NY, London, Toronto & Sydney: 2005.

References

External links

Compelling Stories: Jewish Lives LivedLaura Hillman's Website (Archived)

Holocaust Survivor Laura Hillman at the Bowers MuseumLaura Hillman - a Schindler Jew tells her story
*(https://www.presstelegram.com/2020/06/10/laura-hillman-holocaust-survivor-dies-at-96/ Laura Hillman - holocaust survivor, dies at 96) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hillman, Laura 1923 births 2020 deaths American memoirists 20th-century German Jews American Jews 20th-century German memoirists People from Aurich People from Los Alamitos, California Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp survivors Schindlerjuden Lublin Ghetto inmates Auschwitz concentration camp survivors Naturalized citizens of the United States Emigrants from Allied-occupied Germany to the United States German women memoirists