St. Paul woman, Holocaust survivor, dies at 89

Kristi Belcamino, Pioneer Press
·2 min read

A St. Paul woman who spent six years of her childhood in Poland fearing for her life and hiding during the Holocaust has died. Lucy K. Smith died July 24. She was 89.

Born Lucy (Lilka) Kreisler in Poland in 1933, she began school at 6 years old. After only one month, she was told to leave and not come back because she was Jewish, her family wrote in her obituary.

She and her mother, Mina, spent six years in hiding, afraid each day that they would die. But they were never caught.

In the 1960s, Smith moved to Paris without any money. She eventually married an American man. After having a child, she divorced and settled in St. Paul in the 1970s as a single mother and immigrant.

She spent her life in St. Paul as a painter, writer, teacher, and social justice activist, according to the family. In addition, she was a prolific speaker about the Holocaust and genocide.

She is survived by her son, Daniel Smith.

In a 1997 interview with MPR, she described how a Ukrainian man helped save her family.

Because her grandfather was Jewish, he was prohibited from owning a business so the Nazis “appointed an administrator to take over,” she said.

In her family’s case, the administrator was a Ukrainian man named Eugene.

“When the first action came in we didn’t even know about it,” Smith told MPR. “He rushed very early into our apartment and told us to hide in the attic. And he stayed in our apartment to prevent anyone to come to the attic. He was just a decent person.”

He told them to hide so they would run and hide in the attic. That first time, they hid in the attic for three days, she said.

Asked if Eugene would lie for her family, she said, yes, he did. She said her family trusted him.

Sometimes they would have to hide for a week or two at a time in the clothes they were wearing and with some bread to eat, she said.

When they were finally able to stop hiding, so many people were gone, she told MPR.

“Absent,” she said.

A service was held Friday.

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