Photograph of schoolgirls in Germany

Lilli Eckstein (now Stern) was born on November 1, 1921 to Gustav and Bertha (Speier) Eckstein. The lived in Heldenbergen, Germany, near Frankfurt am Main, where her father ran a business that had been in the family for generations. She had one brother. In 1937, after the Ecksteins were forced to sell their home and their business was Aryanized, they moved to Frankfurt. On Kristallnacht, Lilli's father was among the hundreds of Jewish men who were arrested. The family won his release after assuring the authorities that they were preparing to immigrate to South Africa where they had relatives. The Ecksteins departed on December 20, 1938 and live in Swaziland where their first home was an abandoned mine. Lilli's brother left several months before the rest of the family. Subsequently Lilli met and married Freidel Stern, another German refugee, and the family settled in Johannesburg, South Africa.