Sometimes fact, with a few watercolors mixed in, can be a lot more interesting than fiction.
About a dozen curious people attended last night's book signing with Nelly Toll, the part-time Penn professor, artist and historian whose harrowing experiences as a Jewish child in the Holocaust are the subject of her new illustrated book, Behind the Secret Window.
Born in Lvov, Poland, Toll was just 6 years old when the Nazis swept through the country in late 1939. Knowing that their chances for survival were already thin, Toll's father took a gamble in the hopes that he could save the family.
"When my parents saw the danger lurking, my father found shelter for my mother and I with old friends," Toll said.
The "shelter" was in fact a tiny one-room apartment in the midst of an apartment building filled with Nazi officers.
To add to their bleak situation, they shared the small living quarters with a sometimes-violent Polish Christian man and his wife, who hid them.
The man's frequent abuse of his wife prompted visits from the local police, almost compromising the safety of Toll and her mother.
Yet, Toll said she is thankful for what the man did for her and her mother. "He still risked his life to save us, even though he wasn't perfectly normal."
Inside the room where they hid, Toll's father installed a trap door in front of a hidden window, as a hiding spot for when the Nazis came to inspect the house. According to Toll, that window was their savior.
"There were many dangerous moments where we thought we wouldn't make it," Toll said, adding that in the face of the dangers, "I believed my mother when she said we would survive."
Despite all of the extraordinary conditions, the young Toll helped pass the time by drawing watercolors of her feelings and the way she envisioned the world around her.
Sixteen of the watercolors she painted while in hiding are now on permanent display at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel.
After hiding for two years in the apartment, the Russian army liberated Lvov. But Toll's relief turned into deep grief when she was informed that her father, brother, aunts, uncles and cousins had all been murdered by the Nazis.
However, that immense tragedy inspired Toll to publish her book, and to personally recount her story to anyone who will listen.
One of those listening was Peter Law, who works in Penn's Biochemistry Department. "This was a really rare event, to see someone who actually experienced this," Law said.
Aaron Jaffe was an attendee with a personal connection to World War II, as a combat veteran who helped to liberate a slave labor camp in Poland in 1945. "I was only a 19-year-old kid in the artillery, so I can surely relate to her story," Jaffe said.
"It just seemed too unbelievable, yet six million people did die," Toll added. "It's very important to tell the world what took place."
