I was saddened to learn this week of the death of Lili Pohlmann, a Holocaust survivor who devoted her life to improving Jewish-Polish relations. In Krakow in 1999, covering the Festival of Jewish Culture, I happened to sit next to Lili before the opening concert in Tempel Synagogue. She identified important people in the crowd, telling me which ones I needed to talk to, and revealed a little about her life: the happy childhood in Krakow, the wretched war years in Lvov, the transport of Jewish children, including herself, to England after the war.
Following the concert she invited me to dinner with her husband Peter. On the way we stopped at their hotel so she could give the receptionist a gift. (They were leaving in the morning.) Then we headed to a restaurant on Market Square, where the waiter greeted her like an old friend. Lili ordered three shots of vodka and three glasses of beer. “Na zdrowie,” we said, lifting our glasses. Then we dug into pierogies and carp ‘Jewish style.’
Back outside, we said our goodbyes under a full moon.
That evening remains one of my most cherished memories of Krakow.
