Lili Kalish left this world Wednesday after 89 years in life.
Born in 1924 in Vinne, Slovakia, her life journey took her through a charmed childhood,
a war that stole from her family members, stability, and homes,
ultimately emigrating to the United States
where she soon met a nice Jewish boy from Queens and had a long, happy marriage of 63 years with her beloved Herbert,
who together built a new family in the United States-- having two sons, Martin and John, later expanding with Martin’s wife Karen and John’s partner Sally, and with three grandchildren: Diandra, Tom and Eleanna.
A family with extended its roots to the next generations.
Lili Kalish’s body gave way after an operation on Wednesday. It was an operation that she had chosen because, she, and Herbert, thought that this was the way to extend her life.
Ten years ago, it was an operation that probably would not have been performed on a nearly 90-year old person.
Although the procedure went well, it was not meant to be.
Lili’s leaving us gives us this moment to reflect on the life Lili Kalish lived--and what the horrific circumstances she lived through before she was even 24 years old.
Lili was born in Vinne, Slovakia, in 1924, to Moric and Sari (Grossman) Friedman. Her mother was the youngest of eleven siblings in the Leopold Grossman family, a large and multi-branched family, who helped Lili survive and like so many other large Jewish families lost many, many lives in the Shoah.
Moric and Sari had four children: Elizabeth, Ludwig, Paul and Lili.
Lili’s oldest sister, Elizabeth, born about 1916, married Deszo Keszner in 1938, and had two children. In 1944, a smuggler was to take Elizabeth and her children from Hungary to Slovakia. The smuggler refused to take Lili’s cousins. So Elizabeth and her two children stayed in Hungary and, in 1944, were deported where they perished in a concentration camp. Her husband Deszo was in a labor camp and survived and would play an important role in Lili’s surviving the war.
Her eldest brother, Ludwig, was the one she always looked up to. Ludwig was a prominent Zionist. In 1942 he was being smuggled on a train to Switzerland, hiding in a coal bin near the locomotive. On the Austrian side of the border with Switzerland, he and his friend were sniffed out by Germans with dogs. Ludwig was sent to Theresienstadt. In August 1944, he was taken on the last transport from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, where he perished.
Lili’s other brother, Paul, went on an illegal ship to Israel, which was seized by the British. He was interned in Rhodesia. In about 1950 he left for Israel, the same year that Lili would marry Herbert. Shortly after he left Rhodesia he died of a heart attack.
Lili survived, lived and prospered thanks to her innate wisdom, her ability to think on her feet, and through the help and aid of her large, extended family.
When she was three she went to live with her uncle Moritz Grossman and his wife Sari (Furth) Grossman in Secovce. Moritz had a good business and a nice home, and Lili thought that she apparently fitted in well because her aunt and uncle doted on her, ensuring that clothing and gloves were made for her.
From the beginning of the Nazi’s invasion of Slovakia, Lili refused to wear the yellow star.
With the war intensifying, Lili, now only 18, left Secovce by car with six other young women and one young man to go to a town near the Hungarian border. There was a Jewish-owned vineyard whose caretaker was not Jewish, but he smuggled them across the border.
Like most smugglers he did not do it for love, but for money.
From April 1942 to August 1943 Lili stayed in a number of places, many of them relatives of the extended Grossman and Furth family who were residing in Hungary.
Lili’s brother-in-law Deszo Keszner was able to obtain false papers and ration tickets for her. Her name was now Alice Seltzer. No one ever asked Deszo where or how he got the papers. Lili traveled by train using the false papers Deszo gave her. Together they took the train, sitting apart as strangers, arriving at night to Lili’s sister’s Elizabeth apartment.
Lili stayed at there for about a week but feared that she would be recognized. Soon, she then went to another place where there was a Furth relative, Piri Furth Weiz, who had a new baby, and was a teacher.
In Debrecen, Piri’s husband’s sister, Edo Weisz, met Lili at the train. They had never met, so they used a signal, carrying a magazine. Lili stayed with Piri and Tibor Weisz for a school year, taking care of the house and baby. They owned the house which had three apartments, two of which were rented. One of the apartments was occupied by a Jewish family, but the other was not Jewish. Tibor’s brother was very well connected and knew when there would be hostile raids to round up illegals.
When those raids were happening, Lili would go to the park with the baby in the carriage; other times she hid in someone else’s apartment.
The first summer she was there, she went to Tokay, and stayed on a farm owned by the father of a woman who married into the Grossman family. She went there with other young relatives of the family, all of whom were legal residents of Hungary. Lily was the only illegal.
From this farm she went to Budapest to the apartment of Moritz and Margit Furth. Margit was Sari Furth Grossman’s (Lili’s aunt’s) sister. Margit worked as the secretary at the Dohanyi (Budapest’s great) synagogue, and was related to Sandor Epler, the president of the synagogue.
There were many people in the Budapest apartment: Margit and husband, plus their daughter and husband, and Margit’s adult son. The daughter worked in the Montessori nursery school, and she obtained a job for Lili there, where Lili was also able to live as part of her employment.
Still she stayed at the Furth apartment only for a few days because there were too many people there, and circumstances were precarious. Lili was at the Montessori school for one or two months.
She returned to Debrecen to stay again with the Weisz family. This time, a niece of Piro Weisz, named Anna, had moved there in order to attend gymnasium. Up to that time Anna was at home, schooled by her parents in a very rural area of Hungary. Lili and Anna took turns sleeping one on a sofa, and the other with two armchairs pushed together in the living room. She was there for most of the school year. It was then the summer of 1943. She had survived in Hungary for more than a year as an illegal.
Lili’s Hungarian uncle Hermann Grossman found out that there was a new regulation that permitted a minor child without papers under the age of 15 to be claimed by a Hungarian citizen who was willing to be a guardian. For this, you needed a birth certificate.
Since Lili was 19, she needed a false one to be claimed. Her Uncle Hermann found a Jewish woman willing to participate for money.
Somehow, Moritz Grossman in Secovce was able to get the birth certificate of a girl that had already been deported. Her name was Fanny Bernstein, age 14.
Lili now became Fanny Bernstein. This was the scheme cooked up to get keep her safe given her illegal status in Hungary, and by this time most people who were illegal in Hungary were getting caught. She returned to Budapest.
She again went to the Dohanyi synagogue and a messenger brought her and a much younger girl to the Magdalena Intern Camp in Budapest. She was there for three or four weeks until a detective interviewed her, and she remained there for another few weeks, until she was claimed by a Jewish woman who was a widow with two children.
Lili lived in the widow’s apartment, sleeping on a sofa in the living room. She had to report to the police station every week and stayed there until March 1944. Because of the German takeover of Hungary that month, Lili’s birth parents, the Friedmans, still living in Slovakia, recognized the danger, and arranged for a smuggler to bring Lili back to Slovakia.
The Hermann Grossman family, with whom she had stayed during her time in Hungary, had four children. Sensing the danger they asked Lili to take one child back to Slovakia. Lili agreed to take the youngest, two year old Michael.
Soon after the German invasion of Hungary, Lili crossed the border with a smuggler and two year old Michael. Back in Slovakia she reunited with her birth parents. Lili’s father was managing an estate in Slovakia near the border. Jews were under jeopardy and her father was upset that she was there with her 2-year-old cousin.
Her father and mother were transported to the west which was the last time that Lili saw them in 1944.
Once in Slovakia, she traveled to Secovce with two year old Michael. Somehow, Michael was taken off the bus on arrival in Secovce to be reunited with his parents.
Lili was completely illegal in Secovce for these two to three months, and then during her time in nearby Zilina for another three months. The war front soon moved west, and all the Jews again had to flee or would be deported to the camps.
Lacking any identification Moritz, Sari, and Lili got on a civilian train. Fortunately they were not stopped.
They went to Hlohovec, arriving in late August or early September 1944. At that time the Germans had entered Slovakia to put down the Slovak rebellion that had begun in late August.
Lili’s uncle Moritz had a contact of a Jewish man from Secovce who had funds and was willing to pay for Lili and her aunt and uncle to be hidden by the same farmer where he was hidden.
The hiding place was in a bunker near a house. About nine Jews were already hiding there. After about three days the farmer betrayed the Jews hiding there. He brought the guards and German soldiers, and they ordered everyone out.
Lili, Moritz and Sari were at the back. It was dark. Lili told her aunt and uncle to stay still. The three of them remained still. Early the next morning they left-without being captured.
There was another possible safe place in Hlohovec. Lili’s uncle Moritz did not trust the place but had no other choice. The contact was Sari’s half-brother, Josef Furth. Moritz had the address and a diagram of the possible safe house. This turned out to be the family’s rescuers, Frantisek and Kafka Sedlacek.
They went to the address. It was early morning (Lili later heard that Jews hiding in a nearby church steeple saw them).
There were two doors. They opened one door, and saw a German officer’s uniform on a chair, boots, and an open bed. They stepped back in shock, and the other door opened and a woman (Katka) beckoned us to come in. They closed the open door, and went into a kitchen.
Katka had been up early to do the laundry, and the German officer had been in the outhouse. His room had only the outside door, and was not connected to the rest of the house. Everyone else in the house was still asleep.
From the kitchen there was a door to her bedroom, and there was a small room off the bedroom. That room was about 6 feet by 10 feet. A platform made of wooden slats and straw was arranged for three persons to sleep on side by side on end, and a platform on the other end for Joska Furth to sleep. In the center area was a bucket. There was nothing else in the room.
Frantisek was a carpenter, and the day we arrived he started to build a wooden wall with clothing hangers to camouflage the opening to the room. This was completed in a day or two. The three of them stayed in that room with Josef (Joska) Furth for seven months.
They could not leave. To give you an idea of the depravity of the conditions, from their side, those in hiding could not open the wall. To get food and remove waste, the wall could only be opened from the other side. There was a tiny window at the top of the room that could not be opened. They had to be very quiet. It was miraculous that the German officer was in an isolated room, and never saw anything. He actually had Sunday dinner with the family in the kitchen.
Living conditions were severe. They only had subsistence food, and could wash very seldom in a basin that was brought in. By the time of liberation in April 1945 they all had fleas.
Hlohovec was liberated in late April 1945. When the Soviet troops arrived the family who sheltered them was in the basement. Lili’s and family were still in their hiding place. There was fighting for three days.
When the fighting stopped, some troops came to the basement door to search for possible resistance. Frantisek embraced them and called them ‘Kameraden,’ and they were ready to attack him, but he managed to explain that he was embracing the Soviets. They were then released from the hidden room.
They stayed only a few days after that. During the brief stay, Lili went with Katka to get some milk, and the farmer said they would not give Katka anything because they learned she had been hiding Jews. This incident prompted Lili and her relatives to leave as soon as possible. They managed to get a train to a town (Rimska Sobota) which took them to the east, toward Secovce, where a refugee center had been set up.
They obtained repatriation documents there. Another family had taken over their apartment so they temporarily resided in another apartment for about a month, until they could reclaim their apartment, in Secovce.
In 1947 Lili, her parents gone, was formally adopted by Moritz and Sari.
They lived together in Secovce until February 1948. Then they went to Prague to emigrate to the USA. They procured a visa, and stayed in Prague about a week to get doctor’s examination. They left Czechoslovakia on February 24, 1948, traveling first by train to Belgium, then by boat and train to London. They stayed in London for two weeks, and then traveling by ship, either the Queen Mary or the Queen Elizabeth, to the USA, arrived in New York on March 10, 1948.
Lili was only 24 years old.
In the US, Moritz had a well-to-do brother, Isidor, who ran the Grossman Clothing Co. in New York. He paid for the three of them to come to the US. Isidor helped his family secure housing in Manhattan at 405 East 72nd Street and provided work to both Moritz and Lili.
It was here, in this studio apartment on New York’s Upper East Side, a world away from the European horror, that Lili would meet the man who would spend the next 63 years of her life by her side.
Herbert's only first cousin was married to the son of a well known Orthodox rabbi in Brooklyn named Rabbi Schoenfeld. As luck would have it, Sari Grossman, Lili’s adoptive mother, was related to Rabbi Schoenfeld.
Someone from Lili’s extended family showed Herb a picture of Lili. And said, you might want to meet this girl. Herb saw the picture and made the blind date.
He also says you never know what you are getting into with a blind date. So Herbert drove his in from Queens-- waiting until Shabbos was over, because Moritz was religious. On this Saturday night in early May he went up to the apartment on East 72nd street and met and talked Sari and Moritz, Lili’s adoptive parents. When Lili and Herb went down to his car, the first thing Herb did was to grab a smoke to light before turning the engine on. In one of the most stunning acts of class, at least in Herb’s eyes, Lili reached over and lit his cigarette. Herb thought "This girl is not only beautiful, she's romantic."
For the date Lili looked exquisite. Herb loved the way she talked so they want to Cafe Rouge, the best place that Herb could go, at the Hotel Pennsylvania. It was 1950, the big band era, and it was quite the night.
Both Herb and Lily felt strong emotions that night and it was not too long before Herb decided that this was the girl he would marry.
Just a few months later Herbert proposed. Lili said yes, and they were married October 15, 1950 in NYC by Rabbi Schoenfeld.
They were very happy.
They got their first apartment in Queens, in Jackson Heights. Three years later their first born son Martin joined the family; followed by John in 1956. By then the family had moved to Great Neck, on Long Island. In 1957 Herb took another job in Connecticut and the family moved again. In 1967 the family moved to New Jersey.
It was here, while the boys were at boarding school, that Lili begin an important volunteer experience for her with the Millburn Short Hills Volunteer First Aid Rescue Squad. For 15 years she was a dedicated volunteer, and found great fulfillment in being able to help other people.
In 1997, Lili and Herb moved to Manchester Center, Vermont, to be closer to Martin and his family.
Both Herb and Lili enjoy being in Vermont. Throughout her life, Lili actively maintained friendships from all parts of her life--from the rescuers who hid them during the war to her fellow volunteers on the Millburn Rescue Squad. She made a point of investing in her relationships.
Her children remember her for her domestic prowess, always offering more milk and bread. During the war Lili became an accomplished knitter. With her family, she would always knit sweaters, always thinking about whatever her children needed. One of her grandchildren even got a “Cat in the Hat” hat hand made by Lili.
In one funny story--it was 1955 and Lili was finally learning to drive. Herbert was teaching Lili in the family auto--and was telling her that she needed to depress the clutch to change gears. A two-year-old Martin chimed in from the back seat “engage the clutch.”
For a woman of enormous accomplishment, Lili was modest throughout her days.
Her life’s story is one where she overcame an insidious enemy in her younger days to come to the United States, find love, and build a family with her Herbert, her children, and grandchildren. She found happiness and contentment in the United States. She rebuilt her family. She made sure that her husband, their children, their grandchildren--had what they needed.
To survive what Lili survived, to love and be loved, to live a long life, and to leave the world on her own terms makes her life’s story remarkable and a blessing, that she was able to die, of old age, in a hospital, with her husband and son at her side and today instead of meeting the fate of so many in her family she is being lovingly said goodbye to by all of you who were her family and community.
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