Elizabeth Wilf was born in Lvov, Poland (today Lviv, Ukraine) on April 16, 1932. The Soviet Red Army occupied the city in 1939, and Nazi Germany invaded in mid-1941. At the time, Elizabeth was nine years old, and her family was forced into the Lvov ghetto, allowed only to take things they could carry, and forced to wear the yellow Star of David. Conditions were harsh, malnutrition was rampant, and those Jews who left the ghetto were often taken to the nearby forest to be executed, including Elizabeth’s aunt. Elizabeth hid in an attic with other Jews to avoid liquidation and eventually escaped the ghetto with the help of a Jewish militiaman who knew her family.

‍

Elizabeth, her mother, and her brother had forged papers stating their race to be Aryan and their religion to be Christianity. After escaping from the ghetto, they stayed at a farm outside of Kraków, Poland, where they hid their true religion from the farm’s owner. Her mother, who did housekeeping work in exchange for a place to live, would show Elizabeth Jesus and the crucifixion to ensure the farmer never suspected their Jewishness. Because her father did not have Aryan papers, he hid in a dugout under the barn for years without the owner’s knowledge. After a year and a half the war ended, the town was liberated, and Wilf’s family moved to a displaced persons camp in the American quadrant of Berlin. 

‍

In that camp, Elizabeth married her husband, Joseph, and they moved to the United States in 1950 with the help of the Jewish community in Alabama. Joseph and his brother, Harry, became successful businessmen and, together with their wives, devoted themselves to philanthropy and Holocaust education. The Wilf Family Foundation, now run by the second and third generations, continues to support Jewish causes and broader social justice efforts.