I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree A Memoir of a Schindler's List Survivor

"Tell me what you remember most about home," Dick asked me one evening. "A lilac tree," I said. "It bloomed every May, around the time of Mama's birthday. The memory is so vivid in mind, I can almost smell the lilacs now." In 1942 Hannelore Wolff's life changed forever. Her father had been arrested and sent to a concentration camp. Six weeks later he was dead, and Hannelore and the rest of her family were deported to the camps and a life of unbearable suffering. Yet despite the horrors she faced in various labour and concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Hannelore met and fell in love with Polish POW, Dick Hillman. After a few months they were seperated, but Dick promised Hannelore that he would find her again, wherever she was. He kept his promise, and when both their names appeared on Oskar Schindler's list, Dick and Hannelore were reunited and married. This is their incredible story of courage, love and hope during one of the most horrific times in history.

Laura Hillman (nee Hannelore Wolff) was born in 1923 in Aurich, Germany, near the North Sea. She was the third of five children born to Karoline and Martin Wolff. Five years after Hitler came to power, Laura was separated from her town and family. The events Laura witnessed in the camps kept her from writing for many years, but she finally set out to write her memoir, facing for the first time the circumstances that led to her survival.
Laura now lives in Los Alamitos, California, and devotes her time between talking in high schools and colleges about her experiences and being a docent at the Long Beach Museum of Art.