On May 28, Rachelle “Lily” Goldstein sat before an enraptured audience as an 86-year-old author telling her story — and the stories of others — of a childhood during the Holocaust, surviving the Nazis’ campaign to eradicate the Jewish people.
But, through Goldstein’s compelling retelling, audience members saw the four-year-old Lily crouched in a basement in Belgium, afraid to make a sound, knowing that if the Nazis who came to inspect her orphanage found her, she would die.
“I understood the threat and trembled in silence,” said Goldstein about her and the other Jewish children being “ushered down a coal chute with the dire warning that we would be killed if the Nazis heard us. … I still recall fearing the sound of my own breathing.”
“I fear greatly for the future,” Goldstein said, sharing recent survey data showing that many young people do not have accurate knowledge of the Holocaust, which killed two out of every three Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe during the Second World War. Goldstein noted that the Nazis did not spare children, with 1.5 million of the 6 million Jews killed being infants and children.
“Most under the age of 14 or 15 were put to death immediately upon arriving at extermination camps,” said Goldstein. “Not only in camps but in the ghettos and in hiding, Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Europe were often the first to die. Only 6 to 11 percent of Jewish children survived, versus 33 percent of the adults.”
The lack of information and the proliferation of misinformation inspired Goldstein to collect the stories in Hidden Lives: Stories from Child Survivors of the Holocaust, which is informed by her own experience and her work as Co-Director of the Hidden Child Foundation, which is part of the Anti-Defamation League.
“Hence, the necessity for these warning tales from the last remaining survivors of the Holocaust. Our numbers are dwindling with each passing day, and we care too much about our world to see our history repeat itself,” said Goldstein.
Goldstein warned, “Deception is the hallmark of tyrants. Lies were—and still are—effective in gaining and maintaining public support and deceiving the opposition.”
In signing books for attendees, Goldstein wrote this message again and again: “May no child anywhere ever suffer the atrocities of another genocide.”
Goldstein shared her story at the weekly Senior Lounge at The Baird in South Orange, hosted by SOMA Two Towns for All Ages. The event was sponsored by The Village of South Orange and the Township of Maplewood as part of Jewish Ameican Heritage Month.
The book event was held in the Senior Lounge at The Baird. (Photo by Andrew Lehren)
Local elected officials in attendance included Maplewood Deputy Mayor Malia Herman and South Orange Village Council members Patricia Canning, Hannah Zollman and Summer Jones, who was instrumental in creating the event.
In introducing Goldstein, Jones encouraged all to purchase the book: “I think it’s really important to read it and pass it to the next generation of readers so these stories are not lost.”
Purchase copies of Hidden Lives: Stories from Child Survivors of the Holocaust here.
All proceeds from sales of the book—which was a finalist for the Jewish Book Counci’s book of the year in the Holocaust memoir category—go to the Hidden Child Foundation.
Read Columbia High School student reporter Ella Levy’s profile of Goldstein here.
Attendees lined up to have their books signed by Holocaust survivor and author Rachelle “Lily” Goldstein. (Photo by Andrew Lehren)
