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The story of Lily Mintz.
An unknown girl who perished in the Holocaust
Introduction by: Itzick Simon
In 2008, my dear daughter, Lir Simone, traveled to Poland, and returned with the resounding name of a 7-year-old girl who was murdered in the "child murder" incident in Kielce, Poland: the late Lili Mintz.
Lily has since become a part of all of us, and as a family effort, we try at every opportunity to give this little, anonymous girl a face and a character, and to immortalize her.
When I suggested to Lear and my internet people to open this page, they didn't understand what it had to do with a site that deals with contractor insurance and contracting work.
For me, the connection here is clear and natural and related to our vision: to be good at what we do, to have a good impact, to be connected to the place, society and country, to be part of a long chain – and to remember.
To remember who we are, where we came from, what we seek to give – and most importantly: to always remember to be human.
But the story doesn't end here - and in March 2019 it took a surprising turn. Presented to you here - the story of the late Lily Mintz, and at the end of the story I will add and tell how in the end everything also somehow connects to me.
By: Lir Simon-Nissani
In October 2008 - I set out on a journey.
A search for the stories of one little girl who was murdered in the Holocaust.
I didn't know how far this journey would take me and how powerful it would be.
I didn't know how many hearts this girl could touch.
I didn't know how much I would discover about myself along the way.
At that time, I only had a desire to know, to get to know, to touch this girl's world, even if only for a moment.
This small-big desire has given rise to miraculous events, from 2008 to today...
The story of Lili Mintz - an unknown girl who perished in the Holocaust
With surprising updates from March 2019
My eyes immediately locked on the name: Lily Mintz, 7 years old.
I decided that I wanted to imagine it, that I wanted to remember it.
I closed my eyes and.... I couldn't imagine.
She was a real girl, flesh and blood. How can you even imagine a human being you don't know? A girl who was right here, walking this earth in the last moments of her life.
No. I couldn't imagine her.
As we left the cemetery, shivering in the cold October wind, I promised myself that tomorrow, when I got home, I would try to look up some information about Lily. To try to understand who she really was.
I didn't know that this promise would tie Lily's life to mine - forever.
2008
In 2008, my daughter Lir Simon went on a trip to Poland and came back haunted by the name of one 7-year-old girl that was killed in the Kielce cemetery massacre in Poland: Lily Mintz.
Since then, Lily became a part of us all, and as a family we made an effort at every opportunity to give this young anonymous girl a face and personality, and to commemorate her.
When I suggested to Lir and to my Internet people to build this page, they didn’t understand how it was related to a website that deals with insurance for contractors and contract work.
To me, the connection is clear and natural and pertains to our vision: to be good at what we do, to make a positive impact, to be connected to where you are, to society and to the country, to be a part of a lengthy chain - and to remember.
To remember who we are, where we came from, what we want to give - and mainly: to always remember to be human.
Here is the story of the late Lily Mintz, and at the end I will explain how everything is also related to me somehow.
My search for Lily Mintz
As soon as I returned to Israel, I started searching.
First, I typed "Lily Mintz" in the search bar of the witness pages on the Yad Vashem website, hoping to find a clue there.
The testimony page I found can be summarized in a short sentence:
"Lily Mintz - born Regina in 1935 in Kielce, and murdered on May 29, 1943 in Kielce."
It really wasn't enough for me.
Although at that time I had not yet defined for myself what I was looking for and what I actually wanted to do, it was clear to me that I wanted to know more. I was disappointed by the scant information I discovered, but I found the clue I was looking for - the testimony page was written by a woman named Sarah Kerbel from Kiryat Ono. I started looking for her.
I called 144 and looked for a woman named Sarah Kerbel from Kiryat Ono. I didn’t find her, but there were 3 other Kerbels from Kiryat Ono. Maybe they were her relatives? I called everyone, and no one knew who Sarah was. I was very disappointed, but it only increased my motivation to move forward and investigate more places.
After much hesitation, I called Yehuda Yaron, my guide from the trip.
I told him that Lily Mintz is not leaving me and I must know as much about her as possible. Yehuda said that he would be happy to help me and had already given me ideas for places where I could look. Since then, Yehuda and I have maintained continuous contact, he has supported me throughout and most importantly given me hope.
At this point I still hadn't found anything and in order to continue, I felt I had to set a goal for myself. My goal was to find Lily Mintz - the girl. That is, to find out those human details about this girl. What did she look like, what did she like to play with. Was she shy or playful? Did she celebrate birthdays? What was her favorite color? All these details that would help me paint in my heart the image of the real Lily Mintz.
I wanted to immortalize her, but not as a name and a number, not as a sentence from a page of testimony. I wanted that if they asked me who Lily Mintz was, I would know how to say - Lily Mintz was a child. A child with desires and aspirations and loves - a world in its entirety . I knew that I could only learn these details from living witnesses; from a friend of hers, a family member or an acquaintance who would agree to unfold her image before my eyes. But how do you find someone like that?
I found myself searching for weeks. I turned over every stone I could lay my hands on; every book and document. I contacted departments at Yad Vashem, and the section for searching for relatives. My parents gently tried to get me to let them go. After all, there are so many people who lived during the Holocaust and today there is no trace of them in the world. What made me believe that Lili Mintz in particular had one? I don't know. Deep down I knew that I wasn't searching in vain. That there was something I needed to discover.
In one of my conversations with Yehuda, he suggested I post a question on the "Poland Guides" forum online. I went in and detailed in a message what I was looking for. It should be noted that I really didn't think that would get me promoted, but I figured it wouldn't hurt...
I found a clue: Tzila Lieberman
For two days, many guides wrote to me and advised me to take measures that I had already tried.
Until...
One of the counselors, Oded Altshuler , wrote to me. He wrote that in his community, Karni Shomron, there lived a woman named Tzila Lieberman. She was one of the three children from Kielce who managed to escape the massacre. He added that he had already called her and asked her if she knew Lili. In response, she answered him, " She was my best friend! "
Oded told her about me and said she was waiting for a call from me. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Lily Mintz's best friend was waiting for a call from me. I was excited like I had never been excited in my life before, I was waiting with eager anticipation for a conversation with her!
A few days later, I called Tsila Lieberman and we talked. She said that I had made her very excited in recent days, and that she would be very happy to meet with me. She said that she didn't understand who was interested in Lili anymore, after all, so much time had passed and she had no relatives or friends left alive.
We arranged to meet on Sunday, November 23, 2008, in the evening, at her house in Karnei Shomron, where she would tell me everything she remembers about Lily.
I was very happy and excited about the conversation. At the same time, I was also quite confused. I was only 17 years old and up until then, I had not done anything that significant. It was perceived by me as a huge thing, a crazy discovery from the land of crazy discoveries. To this day, I still feel intense excitement when I remember those moments.
Sunday came and we drove to Tzilla. She was probably very excited and looking forward to it too. She had prepared materials and pictures in advance, and even gave me a copy of her book, in which she had written a special dedication to me. She turned out to be a nice and kind woman, with good energy.
At that meeting, she told me everything she knew about Lily Mintz, her best friend.
Tzila Lieberman talks about Lili (Lilka) Mintz
“I was born in the town of Kielce in Poland. Until the age of 6 or so, I had a normal childhood. I had one brother and a nanny.I studied in 1st grade at the school in Kielce. Later it turned out that this was the only year that I was fortunate enough to learn at a normal school... school ended in June and in September 1939 the Second World War started and my school career ended.
In 1942 the Germans decided to liquidate the ghetto. It took them a week to transfer most of the Jews from the ghetto to Treblinka, on trains. We didn’t realize that they were being moved to a death camp,
we thought that maybe they were being moved to Germany and things would be better for them.
In the end, the Germans left 2000 people in the ghetto, us included. The people that were left in the ghetto were those that had work permits, like my parents and brother.
Childhood in the "Little Ghetto"
At this point, the ghetto that was being liquidated was reduced in size to three streets and was from that point on called the "Little Ghetto." We lived on one of the three streets that were designated as the "Little Ghetto" so we did not have to move.
There were less than fifty children left in the ghetto, including me and Lili Mintz. In fact, this is the stage when Lilka and I got to know each other and became friends. Our paths crossed from the liquidation of the ghetto in 1942 until Lilka's murder in 1943.
Lily was 7 years old and I was 11. We, Lily's friends and acquaintances, called her Lilac (almost no one called her Lily).
We stayed every day in the "small ghetto" where, as mentioned, there were less than fifty children left, the age range was from one year to 13. I became friends with three/four girls with whom I spent my days in the ghetto. One of the girls, her name was Danka, was the one who introduced me to Lilka.
Danka told me that Lilka was a poor girl whose mother was depressed. We called it "combat shock."
Lily
Lilka was 7 years old, her face slowly receding from mine, but I remember that she was a beautiful girl, blonde, with sad blue eyes. She was the only child of parents who were very wealthy before the war. Her mother was a famous pianist and opera singer. Her father worked, I don't remember what. Lilka's mother must have lost her mind and sat all day by the window in the apartment, like a statue, not saying a word, just staring out the whole time. Lilka was tasked with looking after her mother while her father was at work. I remember that she would be persuasive and coax her into eating with caresses and soothing words.
We heard the story of how Lilka's mother lost her mind later: she, her husband, and Lilka herself were on the train that was supposed to leave the Kielce ghetto for Treblinka. One of the Germans who saw her said to her, "You, Regina Mintz - get ready." The German, who recognized Lilka's mother as a famous artist, actually saved her, but since then, Regina Mintz has not spoken and has gone into a depressive state.
Due to her mother's condition, Lilka had to look after her and therefore could not leave the house. I and two other friends - Danka and Iranka, would come to her to play. At first we were a little shy of our mother, but we quickly realized that this was her condition. We used to chat, laugh and play. Lilka played the piano beautifully. I remember that on the holidays that we remembered, we would come to Lilka's and she would play us holiday songs and sing in her evening voice that was like her mother's, whom Lilka aspired to be like. "I will be an opera singer like my mother." She would say and look at her mother, but she did not respond.
There was one incident that I remember well – one of our favorite games was cockfighting. I knocked Lily out of the game and then her mother, who probably thought someone was doing something bad to her daughter, stood up and gave me a ringing slap. Lily, who was only 7 years old, hugged her mother and explained to her that it was okay, it was just a game. At first I was scared, but I realized that this was her situation and that it was not her fault.
Gathering in the large field - towards the end
One day, about a year after the liquidation of the ghetto, all the Jews remaining in the "small ghetto" were forced to arrive with their belongings at dawn to the large yard in the ghetto. This yard was considered by us, the ghetto residents, to be the "death yard." The shape of the yard was like a long rectangle, and a year earlier, almost all the ghetto residents had been gathered there and taken on transports to Treblinka. Many Jews were murdered in this yard, because anyone who dared to turn their head was shot.
I remember that that morning, they led us to that field and we were shaking with fear! The field was full of German soldiers and dogs that wouldn't stop barking.
One of the senior soldiers began calling out the names of the Jews and ordered them to move to the other side of the field, but without the children.
When it was time for the families with children to move, they forcibly separated the children from their parents and dragged them to a white house that was adjacent to the playground. We watched the terrible spectacle, our family names had not yet been called. My mother, who always came everywhere neatly, applied some of her lipstick to her finger and applied it to my cheeks, and put a handkerchief on my head so that I wouldn't look like a little girl. Despite this, they realized that we had no chance of moving together, and they told me, "Come on, Tselinka, we'll go to the white house with you."
My brother, who had already crossed to the other side and saw my parents walking with me towards the White House, immediately jumped up, crossed back to us, and asked my parents - "Why are you going with me and leaving me alone??" My parents simply took his hand and so we all walked until we reached the guard. My father tried his luck anyway, and asked the guard to let him move his two children to the "good side" - the side of the people who go to work. The guard asked "How old are you?" and my father lied to him bravely - "15 and 17" even though I was only 11 and my older brother was 14. The German made a motion with his thumb as if to say - "Go through", and the whole time he didn't raise his head or look at me. We went through.
I couldn't believe my good luck! As soon as we passed, we had to line up in groups of five, like soldiers. We were a group of four, so someone arranged a group of five with us, so that I was in the middle, between two adults on one side and two adults on the other. At that moment, a friend of my brother's who was standing in line behind me put a bag under my feet and told me, "Get on this and don't ask questions." I did what he said. And it saved my life. Then, another soldier came and took out the children who had escaped into the groups of five with the adults.
All the time we heard terrible screams from the White House - "Mom! Dad!" and the parents cried silently and could do nothing. And I thought about my friends who were inside and I knew what their fate would be. We were not innocent.
Suddenly, one of the German soldiers came, grabbed Lily by the waist and tried to pull her out by force. Lily threw herself to the floor. Her mother saw what was being done to her daughter, approached the German and began to twist the shiny button on his suit. He was angry and had already taken out his gun to shoot her, but her husband, Lily's father, intervened between her and the German and explained to him that she was mentally ill and that she had not meant to.
The German put the gun back in his belt, grabbed Lila again and dragged her across the floor across the entire field, all the way to the White House, screaming and yelling.
Lily didn't scream "Dad! Mom!" like everyone else, she probably knew they couldn't help her.
She screamed at the German - "Don't you know mercy?!" and - "I know how to work!!!"
It didn't help, and eventually she too was put in the White House.
And that was the last time I saw her. From here, later, they took them in trucks to the cemetery and shot them there."
This is Lily's story, in the words of the late Tzila Lieberman.
After I wrote down the incredible and heartbreaking story that Tzila told me, I tried to return to the same task that Yehuda gave us when we stood by the monument in the cemetery - to imagine Lily. The same task that I was unable to do at the time. Can I now imagine her?
A quiet, shy little girl who showed maturity, courage, and determination that were unimaginable for her age.
A girl who was incredibly talented at music and singing.
A 7-year-old girl who was deeply attached to her mother, taking care of her with endless responsibility and devotion. And besides all that - still wants to simply be a child.
A girl who loves to play, laugh, and chat.
A little girl with big dreams - that never came true.
The White House
March 2019
The surprising email from Paula from Sweden
The big day has arrived - the 30th anniversary celebration of my father's insurance agency, Itzick Simon - the leading agency for construction insurance.
We've been preparing for this event for a long time, and as a producer, I have to be 100 percent focused.
The reception area filled up and soon there was cheerful chatter, the clinking of cutlery and plates, people laughing.
Suddenly I saw Miri Lebaher , the agency's VP, walking quickly towards me, holding her cell phone in her hand. "Look what we got," she tells me. "We got this in the office's email." "What is this?" I asked. " We got an email from someone from Sweden who happened to see what you wrote about Lily Mintz on the insurance agency's website - Itzick Simon, in the English version. She writes that she knows Lily's mother! "
I didn't understand.
"What do you mean, know her??" I glanced at the message, feeling the tears coming. "I don't know, that's what she wrote. Isn't that amazing??" she tells me, as I start to cry from both excitement and confusion.
Ten years. Ten years have passed since I read Lili's name on the monument in Kielce. Ten years in which I wrote, was interviewed, and told the story of Lili Mintz on countless occasions. The girl from the Holocaust, whom I pledged to remember and immortalize in the world. This little girl whose memory shaped my perception of Holocaust remembrance. The one who taught me so much about myself and about life - and also about death.
So today, ten years later, a woman from Sweden that I don't even know writes to me saying that she knows Lily's mother, Regina Mintz? How is that possible?
All these thoughts quickly flash through my head as I wipe away my tears and say to Miri, "Yes, yes, amazing. We'll talk about it later, we need to take the guests down to the hall."
The next day, I wrote an excited email in response to a woman from Sweden.
Regina's story
Regina Mintz, born on April 24, 1909 as Regina Pruszowska in Kielce, Poland. She was the daughter of two doctors. After high school, she studied music and singing. She became a music teacher at a school, and later became a famous opera singer. She married an engineer named Arnold Mintz and in 1935 they had a daughter, Lili.
When the war broke out, Arnold and Regina tried to escape from Kielce with their small family - but they didn't make it.
Over the years in the Kielce ghetto, Regina lost her entire extended family.
Her mental condition deteriorated greatly and she became depressed and apathetic.
Her daughter Lily, who adored her, had to take care of her; feed her, bathe her, take care of the household and all that -
Before she turned seven years old.
After the closure of the Kielce ghetto in May 1943, where they were separated from their daughter Lili, Arnold and Regina were sent to Auschwitz.
They parted ways in Auschwitz. Regina never knew what became of her husband and daughter.
After a year in Auschwitz, she was sent to another camp in Poland, and from there - in the spring of 1945 - she was liberated by the Red Cross.
This is all that is known about Regina's experiences of the war.
Immediately after the war, the "White Buses" began operating - special Red Cross buses that transported prisoners from Scandinavian countries back to their countries. A small portion of the prisoners they transported were Poles. Regina was among them.
Regina Mintz's life in Sweden
Regina Mintz was transferred in a very poor mental condition to a refugee camp in Sweden, and from there - to a psychiatric hospital. The only thing that stirred any excitement in her, however small - was music. There was a piano at the hospital, which Regina would play and sing. For a while she was even sent to a Swedish family twice a week to play the piano and sing to them.
Regina spent the remainder of her life in Sweden, without a family and with very few friends - Paula’s parents, the woman who wrote to me, were among them.
A doctor who treated Regina introduced her to Paula’s parents in the hopes that the relationship would help her - and indeed it was the case. Regina got a job at the same factory Paula’s mother worked at, and that’s how they grew closer. But Regina could not hold down her job because of her mental state.
Also, when she stopped working at the factory, Paula’s parents kept in close touch with Regina and visited her frequently at the psychiatric hospital - sometimes together with Paula, who was a small girl back then. They would often take walks through the park or the city with her.
Paula remembers Regina as a very sad woman. She recounts that she had a hard time communicating with Regina, since she insisted on speaking in Polish - even though she had already learned to speak Swedish. However, she was a beautiful woman with an impressive presence that turned heads. She was always made-up, wore a stylish hat on her fair hair, an elegant suit, and high heels.
Over the years, Paula’s parents had a hard time keeping up with the visits, since Regina became increasingly more depressed. At some stage they didn’t even know what to say to her anymore, she tended only to stare vacantly, or to murmur to herself. She tended to speak a lot about how famous she was and that she needed to be treated as an artist. They knew that Regina had a husband and daughter, but that’s the extent of what they knew, since she never spoke about what happened to her during the war. Paula’s parents tried to find out what happened to her relatives, but they didn’t find any more information.
Years passed, the hospital closed down, and Regina was given her own apartment. At this stage, Regina had also lost touch with Paula’s parents.
Regina Mintz died in August 1980.
She was buried only about a month after her death, at a Christian cemetery, without a funeral, without a gravestone, and probably without anyone to mourn for her.
Paula and her family found out about her death only long afterwards.
From these records and from my conversations with Paula, I can picture Regina clearly, even more clearly than I can picture her daughter, Lily.
A woman who had an extremely hard life, often intolerable. A woman who suffered immensely from the war and lost her entire family. A woman who never told anyone about her experiences from the war.
Despite all this, and perhaps because of it - she was a beautiful, impressive, and obstinate woman who knew what she wanted. A talented musician until her last day, whose only moments of grace in her life were thanks to music and her devoted friends, who were genuinely concerned for her.
End of the matter
Maybe it's the spirit of Lily and Regina who came down here, so that we could help them get their lives in order. After all, Regina never imagined that she would die alone as a sick woman, and not as an internationally renowned opera singer. She never knew what became of her daughter.
Now we’ve been given an opportunity to unite them, if not in life, then in death. A mother and daughter whose lives were so tragic.
But we can also see a fascinating woman and a courageous girl, who fought with all their strength (and they had a fair amount of it) for the right to be who they were.
Many ask me, “Why is it so important to you? How did you decide to research an anonymous family from the Holocaust, as if they were your own family?”
For years, my answer was always commemoration. I felt that I was able to give life to a girl who was a world unto herself. I told her story, which touched so many people.
Commemoration alone is reason enough to remember.
Is it?
In recent years, when the historical events are moving farther away from us and only their memory is left, I ask myself - what do I want to remember? What does a memory mean, beyond commemoration?
I think that the most significant thing that we can learn from the entire story, is not the life Lily had. But rather the life she could have had.
Can you imagine the life Lily, or her mother could have had, had Lily survived the war? A few details could have changed in their stories.
If only one person had taken responsibility. If only one police officer had turned a blind eye. If only someone could have helped. If only...
If only we look around us and help whoever needs it - imagine how different people’s lives could be. How different the world will be.
Let’s remember to help.
In recent years, as historical events recede from us and only memory remains, I ask myself - what do I want to remember? What is the meaning of memory, beyond commemoration?
I think the most significant thing to learn from the entire story is not the life that Lily had. But the life that she could have had. Can you imagine the life that Lily or her mother could have had, if Lily had survived the war? How many details could have changed in their stories.
If only one person would take responsibility. If only one police officer would turn a blind eye.
If only there was someone to help. If only...if only we looked around us and reached out to those who needed it - imagine how different people's lives could be. How different the world would be.
Let's remember to help.
The names of the children murdered in Kielce, on the night of May 29, 1943
May their memory be blessed
31. Mintz Lily- 7
32. Mandelbaum Chava- 5
33. Sapir Marcel- 3
34. Pinmesser Tseshia- 5
35. Franzek- 14
36. Proshovsky Irena- 7
37. Friedman Yitzhak- 5
38. Cypress Bronic- 7
39. Klinberg David- 5
40. Klineberg Hanna- 11
41. Kerbel Gisela - 1 and a quarter
42. Rosenzweig Gisela - 5
43. Rosenzweig Januszczyk- 6
44. Reiter Zosiah- 7
45. Recht Menachem- 5
16. Weinberg Pliosch- 2
17. Wald Lippert Carol- 1.5
18 Zweiberman Pimosh - 1.5
19. Zilberstein Dora- 12
20 Silberstein Miliusha- 5
21. Khmilensky Israel- 3
22. Khmilinsky Rosia- 4
23. Kherson Miatek- 2
24. Yazvitzky Esther - 13
25. Jeswitzki Hanna- 9
26. Yazvitzky Shmuel - 10
27. Katrielevich Rishya - 8
28. Lederman Shrinka- 4
29. Lander Mina- 9
30. Lex Shrinka- 6
1. Eisenberg Lulek- 5
2. Alex Leah- 11
3. Bogair Fred- 5
4. Bornstein Menachem - 12
5. Bornstein Hannah- 10
6. Berkovich Manos- 7
7. Goldblum Aharon - 1.5
8. Goldblum Josiah-7
9. Goldberg Zola- 2
10. Gurevich Zygmunt - 3
11. Grossberg Poole- 10
12. Groyvard Shrinka- 5
13. Greenberg Zeev- 4
14. Greenberg Yosef- 7
15. Hoffmann Anya- 8
The One Standing by/Yigael Shahar
When hunting, you can close your eyes.
On your deathbed,
Look directly into your children's eyes.
As if the things had never happened.
If you opened your eyes, if you straightened your back.
If a little fear is revealed in you,
If you were a sheep, you would be more than a wolf.
You can be humble enough to arouse sympathy.
If your sleep wandered at night,
If you had only done this.
Things could be different,
They will eat and they will not eat.
If you were an avenger of leaden nights
And indeed,
Things could be different.
The question of the heart,
When a field rises, like the wings of a hyssop
That suppress the pain
Things could be different.
They will eat and they will not eat.
Gaze into the abyss, see the flame
Understand their understanding.
A hand of chance or fate,
Who was cut off in the vast sky,
Or such a mad envy,
In the darkness of the night.
Every day that passes is a blur,
The wind carried him.
The next day, he will be braver than before.
And he came to his place.
Thanks
-
To my family, for their love, faith, and support always.
-
To Yehuda Yaron, for your support, patience, and belief in me.
-
To the late Tzilla Lieberman, who shared with me a significant piece of her amazing life story.
-
To Paula Kudrén from Stockholm, Sweden - who somehow, against all odds in this world, helped Regina connect with the story of her daughter Lili - 76 years after they were separated forever.
Epilogue
By Itzick Simon
Lily's story somehow connects with me too.
I grew up in Or Akiva and in the Aloni Yitzhak Youth Village. When we were children, my mother, Florence Simon, z"l, used to take us during the summer holidays to stock up and purchase textbooks and writing instruments at a well-known store for residents of Hadera and its surroundings: Lieberman Books. The owners of the store were Zila Lieberman z"l and her husband .
It turns out that I had met this woman more than once, without knowing, thinking, or imagining what life story she held within her, what her life was like, and how she survived, until meeting her at her home in Karnei Shomron, where she moved in her later years to live near her grandchildren.
Another twist in gathering a little information about the individuals involved - see here
Paula Codran
The woman from Sweden is named Paula Kodren. She has no connection to our family, my father or the insurance agency, but it turns out that as a little girl, she knew Lili's mother - Regina Mintz. Yes, yes, the same Regina Mintz, a famous opera singer who became mentally ill in the ghetto. It was Lili who took care of her with devotion until they parted ways. It was Lili who wanted to be like her when she grew up. Regina Mintz - Lili's mother.
Again, I had countless questions running through my head, but Paula was patient with me and told me everything I wanted to know about Regina. So after some long correspondence with Paula via email and reading documents she translated for me from Swedish, I was able to put down a portrait of the fascinating and lonely character of Regina Mintz. And perhaps reconnect her with her daughter, Lily.