I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree

I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree—A Memoir of a Schindler’s List Survivor is a Holocaust memoir by German-American author Laura Hillman. The book follows a young Hillman, who at the time went by Hannelore Wolff, as she imperils herself to keep her family together during the Nazi persecution of the Jews and their forced internment in concentration camps. Wolff passed through a series of camps, including the most infamous Auschwitz outside of Krakow, Poland, and is a Schindlerjuden, or “Schindler’s Jew,” meaning that she survived thanks to the protection of Nazi industrialist Oskar Schindler. Hillman writes for a young adult audience, with the goal of transmitting the conditions of atrocity that Jews were subjected to, and the triumphs of the human spirit through which they endured.

The novel begins at the outset of the Holocaust. Before anyone has begun to conceive of the extent and imminence of Hitler’s brutality, Wolff enjoys a rather innocent life in a Jewish boarding school near Berlin. She belongs to a large Jewish family proud and public about their heritage. One day, Wolff’s family receives a letter ordering them to a newly designated Jewish ghetto in Poland. The order is effective only for Wolff’s mother, Karoline, and brothers, Selly and Wolfgang; however, out of a fear that she will lose them, Wolff writes to the Nazi party asking to be included.

The Nazis grant her request, and she follows her family to Poland. They are separated shortly after. Wolff does not realize that she has seen them for the last time – sixty-three of her family members’ lives, including those of her parents and brothers, will be claimed by the Holocaust. Wolff passes through at least seven concentration camps and is forced into hard labor. At Budzyn concentration camp, the fourth camp she attends, she meets a Polish prisoner of war Bernhard Hillman. Most of Bernhard’s family has already died at the hands of the Nazis. He and Wolff fall in love, managing to stick together through their next internment at Plaszow concentration camp. Bernhard promises Wolff that after they escape the concentration camps, he will plant her lilac trees after the ones that grew in her childhood home. After Plaszow closes, they learn that they have been placed on Schindler’s List. At the time, they have little idea how lucky they are: Jews on the list will be essentially protected from Nazi persecution due to Oskar Schindler’s power to retain Jewish workers for his factory.



After a brief but horrible stint at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Wolff and Bernhard go to Schindler’s camp, Brünnlitz. There, they live through the end of the war. In May 1945, the camp is freed by the Workers and Peasants’ Red Army. Wolff is devastated to hear that Selly died from being brutally beaten at Budzyn concentration camp. Luckily, Wolff’s two sisters, Hildegard and Rosel, were living in England and Palestine just before World War II, areas relatively untouched by Hitler’s reign, and are, therefore, safe.

Wolff and Bernhard have a Jewish wedding in Bavaria that fall. About a year later, they immigrate to New York. They ultimately settle in Los Alamitos, California, and have a son. I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree is a true testament to the suffering Jews went through, and the extraordinary resilience as they forged lifelong bonds even in the midst of a world war.