the hidden girl

  • 1930's

    Hitler and the Nazi party are telling the world "Jews are a diseased race."
  • October 4, 1934

    Lola was born
  • November 9, 1938

    A Geman officer is killed in Paris by a Jew. Sets off a backlash known as the Night of Broken Glass.
  • summer 1939

    Czortkow starts having rolling blackouts. All the streetlights are turned off, and Jews tape black paper over the windows so Geman bombers can not see then when flying over head
  • Europe 1939

    Six million Jews died during WWII, 1 1/2 million were Jewish children. Adults had a 33% chance of surviving, children only had 10%
  • september 1, 1939

    Hitler invades Poland where 3.3 million Jews live.
  • September 1939

    Lola is free to walk around the marketplace with her mother. The Russian soldiers arrive.
  • September 17, 1939

    the Russians take over the town
  • 1941

    Hitler comes up with a plan to execute all of Europe's Jews it's called the Final Solution
  • spring 1941

    Lola is six and a half and is going to nursery school at her father's cousin's house. There are about over a dozen other kids there too.
  • July 6, 1941

    It was a Sunday, the Germans arrive to town marching with guns and tanks, wearing goggles, tall black boots, and leather jackets.
  • October 15, 1941

    The Germans made a law that anyone providing shelter to Jews, giving them food, or even selling them food, is to be killed
  • December 7, 1941

    Japan bombs Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and that makes America join the war
  • April 1942

    the Jews in czortkow are confined to a ghetto, a seris of streets and buildings where Jews must live. unless you don't have the right papers , you cannot leave the ghetto.
  • summer 1942

    Lola's dad dies at home
  • August 26-27 1942

    the first "action" come. for germans, it means a day set aside for rounding up huge numbers of of Jews and sending them by train to concentration camps. Lola, her mother, and her grandmother hide in a narrow space between a two tight walls
  • March 21, 1943

    today is Purim a Jewish holiday. Lola's mother, a cousin, and 2 other women were killed by a German officer after his Jews were killed by a German soldier, Kurt Kollner, enacting revenge for another German soldier going to his territory and killing his Jews
  • may 1943

    A few months after Lola's mother is killed, Babcia takes Lola aside and sent her to a nice lady named anna
  • spring 1943

    Tekla's son-in-law works in the fields even though it is still windy and cold. Lola is always scared of him
  • June 1943

    A final "action" happened killing all jews including Babcia
  • summer 1943

    A couple months after Lola got to the house, a man and a woman came to the room where Lola was. The dog never barks. Lola pretends to be deaf and mute. The son-in-law says that the next day he is taking Lola to the Gestapo. Tekla takes Lola in the middle of the night to Anna where she is put into a 6 1/2 x 6 1/2 foot hole with 3 other Jews
  • January 1944

    Just after the new year of 1944 Anna tells Lola and the others that the Germans are losing the war and retreating
  • March 1944

    Lola and the others hear fighting nearby. They can hear the tanks rumbuling and the crack of gunfire. To Lola, this time it is a wonderful sound.
  • a morning in March 1944

    Anna comes and tells them they have been "liberated" by the Russians. Before sunrise Lola and the others crawl out of the hole they were in for 9 months
  • March 23

    Czortkow was finally liberated from German soldiers
  • March 25, 1944

    the germans came back to try and that Czortkow back from the Russions. Rose wouldn't take Lola back to the farm house.
  • April 4th, 1944

    Rose kicks Lola out and makes her follow the crowd out of Czortkow. Lola is 9 1/2 years old
  • April 10, 1944

    Lola has to beg for food. A Russian soldier, offers to take her to the orphanage in Keiv.
  • April 12, 1944

    a man at city hall decided to take Lola to the orphanage named sergei
  • summer 1944

    the German soldiers disappear and they are finally gone
  • D-day June 6, 1944

    American and British soldiers land on the breaches of Normandy, France and begin to push the Germans westward while the Russians are pushing them eastward. This day America thinks is the beginning of the end of WWII
  • October 4, 1944

    Lola turns 10 years old while living with Sergei. She is sad and upset but will not let anyone know. She is dealing with big emotions over losing her family and being tossed from one place to another. Feelings of being unwanted. Sergei has been writing letters to Czortkov to try and find her family of Lola's
  • April 12, 1945

    Sergei finally gets into contact with Lola's uncle George. He is living in Lwow now. He is one of Lola's mother's brothers. Uncle George goes to Keiv to look for Lola, not realizing she wasn't in the orphanage. He goes without papers and is placed in jail where he gets really sick.
  • April 30, 1945

    Aldolf hitler comites suicide
  • V-E Day May 7, 1945

    Germany surrendered. Known as "Victory in Europe Day"
  • Summer 1945

    Poles and Ukrainians are still killing Jews even though the war is over
  • Early August 1945

    America drops two atomic bombs on Japan.
  • V-J day August 14, 1945

    Japan surrenders. Known as " victory over Japan day"
  • September 1945

    Lola gets onto a train with a man named Romek heading to Krakow to be reunited with her Uncle George. When she gets there she feels numb even though she knows it is an emotional moment.
  • late Summer 1946

    lola's Uncle Isaac shows up at Uncle George's house. Lola likes Krakow. However, they dont stay long and end up leaving because the tension between the Poles and Jews has not gone away
  • fall 1946

    Lola, Uncle George, Uncle George's family, and Incle Itch are moving from country to country trying to escape from the persecution of Jews.
  • December 1946 - January 1947

    Lola finds herself in Eschwege, Germany in a displaced person's camp run by the United Nations. she spends over a year there. Lola tries to go to Israel because she doesn't want to go to America
  • July 7, 1949

    Lola finally gets clearance to travel to America. Uncle George and his family received clearance the year prior but waited for Lola
  • september 1949

    Lol starts high school but drops out to work full time because she takes care of herself not asking her aunt or uncle for anything.
  • september 1950

    Lola graduates at 16 with her comptometer operator certificate. starts working at Saks 34th street during the day and goes to high school at night, but again drops out.
  • October 1951

    Lola goes to Brighton beach where she meets her husband
  • April 1952

    Lola and Walter get married. Lola goes back to school and gets her diploma
  • 1955

    Lola is 21 and worked until the birth of her first child, Deborah Renee. She was named after her mother Dworja and after Walter's mother Rachel. They live in an one- bedroom apartment in Brooklyn.
  • 1958

    Lola's seconed child is born, Micheal Jay. He is named after Walter's father and Lola's father. Walter has gone to school to design and create patterns for coats and suits. They move to the suburbs in long island.
  • 1966

    Lola gives birth to her third child, Jeffery Scott. He named after Lola's paternal grandfather and her oldest uncle.
  • Memorial Day Weekend 1991

    50 years of silence was broken when Jane Marks asks Lola for an interview for a book on hidden children. Jane unlocks no just Lola's words but her emotions too.
  • 1993

    Jane Marks's book on hidden children during WWII is published
  • November 21, 1994

    Anna Aksenczuk, the non-Jew who hid Lola in the hole, was officially recognized as one of the "righteous" at the "The Righteous Among the National Nations"
  • 2001

    Lola receives a letter from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washinton D.C. looking for artifacts that survived the war
  • 2002

    Lola's dress travels to different states and cities with Lola and Sara Bloomfield.