Holocaust survivor shares art, memories with students

Nelly Toll still vividly recalls the day she says changed her life forever. "I remember standing with my cousins on the balcony watching the Nazis march in with their shiny boots," she said. "It was a beautiful, warm June day." Toll, a survivor of the Holocaust, shared her story and art with more than 50 people gathered in Houston Hall's Bowl Room yesterday night as part of Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Memorial Day. Toll, currently a graduate student in the School of Education, teaches creative writing at Rowan College in New Jersey. According to College junior Abigail Lindenbaum, co-chairperson of Hillel's Holocaust Education Committee, Toll approached Hillel about speaking at the University. The committee, which sponsored the event, decided she would be an appropriate speaker. Hillel Program Associate Amy Meltzer noted that the committee thought Toll would offer an "interesting perspective" on the Holocaust. Toll used passages and slides of paintings from her book Behind the Secret Window: A Memoir of a Hidden Childhood, to tell her story. The book has won many awards, including the International Reading Association Award. Toll and her mother survived the Nazi invasion of Poland by hiding in a two-room apartment in Lwow, a town now called Lvov that is considered part of Ukraine. Toll said she and her mother faced many close encounters when they were almost discovered. When they were in danger, she and her mother would hide in a secret spot behind a blocked-off window. It was there that Toll kept her diary and paintings. She explained that there is no sadness or evidence of what was happening to her in her paintings, which provided Toll with an escape to a fantasy world. Her art contrasts with her diary, in which she recorded the frightening reality of her life. Although her father, brother, and cousins were all killed in the Holocaust, Toll said she considers herself lucky because she survived and was not separated from her mother. "Being with my mother saved me physically and psychologically," she said. "While so many were orphaned and hidden in sewers, I was always with her." Toll showed slides of her paintings, including a piece called "Queen of Freedom" painted when Soviet troops liberated Poland in 1944. Toll said the painting was inspired by Greek mythology. She also showed a series of paintings detailing her fantasy of going from kindergarten to junior high school to college and other artwork representing a family running away, finding a kind woman to help them escape across a river. Lindenbaum said she was impressed with Toll's art. "The use of color is fabulously mature for such a young age and the detail and shading are incredible," she said.

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