Arthur and Lilly: The Girl and the Holocaust Survivor by Lilly Maier

Buy this book at Amazon or for Kindle or at Bookshop

What do a 75-year-old Los Angeles based rocket engineer and an eleven-year-old schoolgirl from Austria have in common? Not much at first glance, but Arthur and Lilly influenced each other’s lives in a fateful way.

In 1939, Arthur‘s Jewish parents sent their son abroad on a so-called Kindertransport (“children’s transport”), hoping to save him from the Holocaust. The separation is a traumatic experience for the ten-year-old. Although he is rescued – from Austria via France to the United States – his family is murdered by the Nazis. He never sees them again.

Sixty-five years later: During a visit to his parents‘ former apartment in Vienna, Austria, Arthur Kern meets eleven-year-old Lilly Maier. A decisive encounter for both of them, which not only shapes Lilly’s further life but also leads to Arthur receiving a long-lost legacy from his parents.

A moving tale of two lives that fatefully cross paths, and an immensely knowledgeable insight into an unknown Holocaust story: the rescue of hundreds of Jewish children to America on a Kindertransport.

Year first published: 2023