Lilly Friedman doesn't remember the last name of the
woman who designed and sewed the wedding gown
she wore when she walked down the aisle over 60
years ago . But the grandmother of seven does recall
that when she first told her fiancé Ludwig that
she had always dreamed of being married in a
white gown he realized he had his work cut out
for him .
For the tall, lanky 21-year-old who had survived
hunger, disease and torture this was a different
kind of challenge. How was he ever going to find
such a dress in the Bergen Belsen Displaced
Person's camp where they felt grateful for the
clothes on their backs?
Fate would intervene in the guise of a former
German pilot who walked into the food distribution
center where Ludwig worked, eager to make a
trade for his worthless parachute. In exchange
for two pounds of coffee beans and a couple of
packs of cigarettes Lilly would have her wedding
gown .
For two weeks Miriam the seamstress worked
under the curious eyes of her fellow DPs,
carefully fashioning the six parachute panels
into a simple, long sleeved gown with a rolled
collar and a fitted waist that tied in the back
with a bow. When the dress was completed
she sewed the leftover material into a matching
shirt for the groom .
A white wedding gown may have seemed like a
frivolous request in the surreal environment of
the camps, but for Lilly the dress symbolized
the innocent, normal life she and her family
had once led before the world descended into
madness.
Lilly and her siblings were raised in a Torah
observant home in the small town of Zarica,
Czechoslovakia where her father was a
teacher, respected and well liked by the young
yeshiva students he taught in nearby Irsheva.
He and his two sons were marked for extermin-
ation immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz .
For Lilly and her sisters it was only their first
stop on their long journey of persecution, which
included Plashof, Neustadt, Gross Rosen and
finally Bergen Belsen.
Lilly Friedman and her parachute dress on display in
the Bergen Belsen Museum
Four hundred people marched 15 miles in the
snow to the town of Celle on January27, 1946 to
attend Lilly and Ludwig's wedding. The town
synagogue, damaged and desecrated, had been
lovingly renovated by the DPs with the meager
materials available to them. When Sefer Torah
arrived from England they converted an old
kitchen cabinet into a makeshift Aron Kodesh.
"My sisters and I lost everything - our parents, our
two brothers, our homes. The most important thing
was to build a new home." Six months later, Lilly's
sister Ilona wore the dress when she married Max
Traeger. After that came Cousin Rosie. How many
brides wore Lilly's dress? "I stopped counting after
17." With the camps experiencing the highest
marriage rate in the world, Lilly's gown was in
great demand..
In 1948 when President Harry Truman finally
permitted the 100,000 Jews who had been
languishing in DP camps since the end of the war
to emigrate, the gown accompanied Lilly across
the ocean to America. Unable to part with her
dress, it lay at the bottom of her bedroom closet
for the next 50 years, "not even good enough for
a garage sale. I was happy when it found such a
good home ."
Home was the U . S . Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, D. C. When Lily's niece, a volunteer,
told museum officials about her aunt's dress, they
immediately recognized its historical significance
and displayed the gown in a specially designed
showcase, guaranteed to preserve it for 500 years.
But Lilly Friedman's dress had one more journey
to make. Bergen Belsen, the museum, opened its
doors on October 28, 2007. The German govern-
ment invited Lilly and her sisters to be their guests
for the grand opening. They initially declined,
but finally traveled to Hanover the following year
with their children, their grandchildren and extended
families to view the extraordinary exhibit created
for the wedding dress made from a parachute.
Lilly's family, who were all familiar with the stories
about the wedding in Celle, were eager to visit the
synagogue. They found the building had been
completely renovated and modernized . But when
they pulled aside the handsome curtain they were
astounded to find that the Aron Kodesh, made from
a kitchen cabinet, had remained untouched as a
testament to the profound faith of the survivors . .
As Lilly stood on the bimah once again she beckoned
to her granddaughter, Jackie, to stand beside her
where she was once a kallah. "It was an emotional
trip. We cried a lot."
Two weeks later, the woman who had once stood
trembling before the selective eyes of the
infamous Dr. Josef Mengele returned home and
witnessed the marriage of her granddaughter..
The three Lax sisters - Lilly, Ilona and Eva, who
together survived Auschwitz, a forced labor camp,
a death march and Bergen Belsen - have remained
close and today live within walking distance of
each other in Brooklyn. As mere teenagers, they
managed to outwit and outlive a monstrous killing
machine, then went on to marry, have children,
grandchildren and great-grandchildren and were
ultimately honored by the country that had ear-
marked them for extinction.
As young brides, they had stood underneath the
chuppah and recited the blessings that their
ancestors had been saying for thousands of years.
In doing so, they chose to honor the legacy of
those who had perished by choosing life.
IN MEMORIAM - 70 YEARS LATER
It is now more than 60 years after the
Second World War in Europe ended .
This e-mail is being sent as a memorial
chain, in memory of the six million Jews,
20 million Russians, 10 million Christians
and 1,900 Catholic priests who were
murdered, massacred, raped, burned,
starved and humiliated with the German
and Russian peoples looking the other
way!
Now, more than ever, with Iraq, Iran, and
others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a
myth,' it's imperative to make sure the
world never forgets, because there are
others who would like to do it again .
Please pass on . . . . . lest we forget!
