The Story of Lily Mintz - an unknown girl who was killed in the Holocaust My search for Lily Mintz

In fact, at this stage me and Lilka met and became friends. Our paths crossed when the ghetto was liquidated in 1942 until Lily was murdered in 1943.
Lily was 7 years old and I was 11. We, Lily’s friends and acquaintances, called her Lilka. In fact, no one actually called her Lily.
Every day we stayed in “the small ghetto” where, as I mentioned, less than fifty children remained, and the range of ages was from one year to 13.

I befriended three/four girls that I spent my time with at the ghetto. 
One of them, Danka, introduced me to Lilka.  Danka told me that Lilka was an unfortunate girls whose mother was depressed. We called it “battle shock”.
Lilka was 7 years old. 

Her face has slowly faded in memory but I remember her as being a pretty girl, blonde, with sad light blue eyes. She was the only child to parents who were very affluent before the war.

Her mother was a famous pianist and opera singer. Her father worked, I don’t remember doing what.
Lilka’s mother probably lost her sanity and spend her days sitting by the window of her apartment, like a statue, not speaking a word and just gazing outside all the time.

Lilka was in charge of caring for her mother when her father was at work. I remember that she used to beg and plead with her mother to eat by stroking her and saying soothing things.

Later we heard the story of how Lilka’s mother lost her sanity - she, her husband and Lilka were on the train that was supposed to travel from the Kielce ghetto to Treblinka.  One of the Germans that saw her said to her “You, Regina Mintz - get off” the German who recognized Lilka’s mother as a famous artist actually saved her, but after that, Regina Mintz never spoke and sank into a depressed state.

Because of the mother’s condition, Lilka could not leave home because she was in charge of keeping an eye on her mother, so I and 2 other friends - Danka and Irenka, would come over to her place to play.
Initially we recoiled from the mother, but we quickly realized that it was just how she was. We used to chat, laugh, and play. Lily played the piano very nicely. I remember that on the holidays we used to remember, we would come to Lily and she would play holiday songs for us and sing in a voice that was so much like her mother’s. Lilka wanted to be like her. “I’ll be an opera singer like my mother”, she would say and look at her mother, but she would get no reaction.
One of our favorite games was chicken fights.

There was one episode I remember well - I knocked Lily down in a chicken fight and then her mother, who probably thought that someone was harming her daughter, got up and gave me a stinging slap on the face. Lilka, who was only 7, hugged her mother and explained to her that it was fine, that it was only a game. At first I was alarmed, but then I realized that it wasn’t her fault for being like that.

One day, about a year after the ghetto had been liquidated, they forced all the remaining Jews in “the small ghetto” to come with their belongings in the early morning to the large field in the ghetto, that we, the ghetto inhabitants, considered the “field of death” because this field, which was a long rectangular shape, was where one year earlier almost all the ghetto inhabitants were herded up and shipped off to Treblinka.

Numerous Jews were murdered in this field because anyone that dared turn their head, was shot.
I remember that on that same morning, we were led to that field and we were shaking with fear! The field was full of German soldiers and dogs that wouldn’t stop barking.

One of the senior soldiers started calling out the Jews’ names and instructed them to move to the other side of the field, but without the children.

When the time came for the families with children to move, the children were forcefully separated from their parents and dragged to a white house adjacent to the field.

We watched the horrible spectacle, while our family name had not yet been called. My mother, who never went anywhere unkempt, rubbed some of her lipstick from her lips on my cheeks, and put a handkerchief on my head so I wouldn’t look like a little girl.

However, they realized that we didn’t have a chance of staying together, and they said to me “come Tzillinka, we’ll go to the white house together with you”. My brother, who had already moved to the other side and saw that my parents were walking with me toward the white house, darted over to us and asked my parents - “Why are you walking with her and leaving me alone??” My parents just held his hand and all of us walked together until we reached the guard.
My father tried his luck and asked the guard to let him take his children to “the good side” - the side where the people were going to work.

The guard asked “how old”? And my father courageously lied “15 and 17”, even though I was only 11 and my older brother was only 14. The German jerked his thumb as if to say “pass”, not once lifting his head or even looking at us. We passed. I couldn’t believe my good fortune!

As soon as we passed we had to line up in fives, like soldiers.

We were only four, so someone joined us so that I was in the middle, between 2 adults on one side and two adults on the other side. At that moment, my brother’s friend, who was standing in the row behind me, put a bag under my feet and told me “stand on this and don’t ask questions”. I did what he told me to. And it saved my life.
Later, a soldier came and removed the children that had snuck off to the adult’s rows of five.
The entire time we heard terrible screams from the white house - “Mommy! Daddy!”, the parents cried quietly and couldn’t do a thing.

I thought about my friends that were inside and I knew what their fate would probably be. We were not naive.
And here, one row in front of me, a girl turns her head to me - Lilka! “Oy, Lilka, it’s so good to see you here! You must live!” Lilka gave me a little smile and she whispered something, I think it might have been a prayer. Her sad eyes reminded me then of her melancholy mother’s eyes.
And suddenly, one of the German soldiers came, grabbed her forcefully by her clothes and tried to pull her out, and she threw herself on the ground.

Her mother saw what was happening to her daughter, approached the German and started to twist the shiny button on his uniform. He got angry and took out a gun to shoot her, but her husband, Lily’s father, came between her and the German and explained to him that she was mentally ill, that it wasn’t intentional. The German put his gun back in the holster, grabbed Lilka again and dragged her on the ground the entire length of the field, to the white house, with her screaming and shouting, but not “Daddy! Mommy!” like everyone else. She probably already knew that they couldn’t help her. She shouted at him “Don’t you have any mercy?!” and “I know how to work!!!”

It didn’t help, and eventually she was also put in the white house. And that was the last time I saw her.
From there, later, they took them in a truck to the cemetery and shot them.”