- Biography
- Lily Bink (born Lily Winiger) is the daughter of Abram Winiger and Mina Handel Winiger. Abram was born in 1905 in Nadworna, Poland, and Mina was born 1913 in Majdan Gorny, Poland. They married in 1938 and settled in Nadworna, Poland. In 1939, they gave birth to a son named Jakob. Following the outbreak of World War II, Nadworna fell under Soviet occupation. Then, in June 1941, Germany launched a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union. On June 22, 1941, Hungary, an ally of Germany, sent troops to occupy Nadworna. Immediately, local Ukrainians began attacking the town's Jewish population. After Germany assumed control of the town in September 1941, the antisemitic assault became more formalized. They established a ghetto for all Jewish residents in June 20, 1942, and later that summer, they conducted a deportation Aktion to the Belzec extermination camp. Among those deported and killed, was Jakob, who was only three years old.
After the loss of their son, Mina and Abram escaped from the ghetto. They went house to house searching for someone to help them. Reluctantly, a woman and her son took them in, concealing them from the woman's husband. Although he did eventually find out, the thirteen year old boy convinced his father it would do no good to denounce them as the whole family also would be killed. They remained with this family [whose name is unknown] until liberation. None of their relatives survived. Mina and Abram eventually made their way to Foehrenwald DP camp, where they gave birth to their first daughter Sara in 1946. They immigrated to New York in 1949 and gave birth to Lily in 1950.