This blog series features the Holocaust survivors whose portraits were on view in our 2017 installation Eyewitness.
Toby Levy was born in Chodorow, near Lvov, Poland in 1933. She grew up in an Orthodox family. In spring 1941 the Germans invaded Soviet-occupied Poland and a few months later Jews were forced into ghettos. In fall 1942 her family went into hiding. The family was taken in by a Polish woman who had been a customer in her father’s fabric store. They remained hidden in a barn until June 1944, when they were liberated by the Red Army. The family came to the United States 1949. Today, she volunteers her time as a member of the Speakers Bureau of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.
Toby Levy was a featured speaker at the Museum’s 2018 Annual Gathering of Remembrance. Watch the short clip below from that event, where Toby discusses her father’s words to her and her sister before they separated during WWII.