1939-1945 Star Medal and ribbon awarded to an Austrian Jewish woman for service in the British Auxiliary Territorial Division

Lilly Feldmann was born in Vienna, Austria, on June 23, 1920. In 1938, hating and fearing the unrelenting growth of violent persecutions of Jews and Nazism, Lilly escaped to England. In a final diary entry on November 14, 1938, 18 year-old Lilly wrote a farewell to her childhood and her beloved city: “I am going to leave Vienna shortly. The Vienna I love and will always love although now it rejects me and makes clear to me that it is no longer my hometown. It is a curse that I shall miss this home in spite of the fact that it hates and rejects me. Yes, I want to leave you but only because you no longer want me, Vienna, you poor Vienna, because you don’t know what you are doing. And I see you disintegrate, very clearly, because you want it yourself. I am leaving, it has to be that way, I guess; but I shall cry for you, you stupid, pitiful country. You have allowed yourself to be led around by your nose and now there is no return. I would feel better if I could hate you like all these others, but unfortunately, I cannot - . I now finish this notebook…a reflection of a beautiful and unburdened era.” (translator, unknown USHMM staff) Soon after arriving in England, Lilly joined the British Armed Services. During World War II, she was promoted to sergeant and was stationed in Palestine and Africa as a member of the Auxiliary Transport Unit. On September 15, 1943, she received citizenship orders for a certification of naturalization in the British Protectorate of Palestine. After the war, she asked the Red Cross for help in locating her mother, born September 15, 1898, whom she had left behind in Vienna. They told her that she had been transported to the Łódź ghetto, then to Auschwitz death camp where she was murdered. On December 30, 1963, the Austrian government issued Lilly a check for $348.64 as compensation for her mother’s death. Lilly never cashed the check. Lilly lived in Israel for 14 years, and then joined her cousins, Charles and Lillian Deutsch, in New York City, NY. Lilly died of cancer in 1964, aged 44, and was buried in Denver, Colorado.

The 1939-1945 Star Medal was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2009 by Dr. Dorit B. Whiteman, who received the medal from Gertrude and Charles Deutsch, Lilly Feldmann's cousins.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Dorit B. Whiteman, Ph.D.