Lilly Segelstein

Lilly Lebovitz, lived in Klucserka, Czechoslovakia with her parents, two sisters and two brothers. Her father was a furniture maker and her mother was a dressmaker. Before antisemitism in the town forced them to move to the nearby city of Munkács, Lilly spent her summers in the country on her grandparents’ farm. In Munkács, barred from attending school by antisemitic restrictions, Lilly learned to sew in a dressmaking shop. After the German occupation of Munkács, Lilly and her family were forced into a ghetto and from there deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Only Lilly and her sister Leah, chosen for slave labor, survived the war. After liberation, the two girls made their way to Italy hoping to reach Palestine. In 1948, Lilly and her new husband, Boris Segelstein, came to America, settling first in New York and then, in 1953, in Kansas City.