Lola Leser was a privileged sixteen-year-old in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. The horrors of the Holocaust overtook her almost immediately when she moved to Krakow, Poland, after living for years with her maternal grandparents in Munkach – at that time in Czechoslovakia. It was there, in her grandparents’ “enchanted garden,” that she discovered her artistic talents. Before she had a chance to fully mature, Mechel Lieber swept her up into a marriage that was to turn into a loving partnership. That union saw them through years of hiding, of fleeing from shelter to shelter and from city to city – often escaping capture by a hairsbreadth. During those horrid war years, which included weeks of starvation and periods of imprisonment, they lost almost all of their loved ones and witnessed firsthand the unbelievable bestiality and depravities of the Nazis. Through six harrowing years, Lola clung both to her husband and to her staunch faith in the One Above, Who granted them both many miracles. It is this faith and her traditional upbringing that propelled Lola to uphold her Jewish values and traditions under the most adverse conditions. Lola was ever conscious that she was a link in the eternal chain of Jewish survival and continuity against all odds. On January 19, 1946, now liberated, Lola gave birth to her first child in Munich, and the following year she immigrated to the United States. Her beloved Mechel died of cancer in 1966, leaving her with three children.Into her mid-eighties, Lola still was painting and had a reputation as a successful artist. Her work was exhibited in many art galleries throughout the United States and is in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Art. Her paintings are also part of the Yad Vashem archives in Jerusalem and are in a number of private collections. She maintained a gallery in the heart of the Chassidic neighborhood of Boro Park in Brooklyn, New York. Lola was well-known and was often commissioned to paint portraits. Her works encompassed a wide range of styles including traditional, impressionistic, as well as modern. Though Lola maintained a busy social and charitable activity schedule, her family always came first. Lola often proudly stated that she was the mother of three and grandmother of twelve and great grandmother of close to fifty offspring.To date she has one hundred and nineteen descendants and some still on the way. This truly was her triumph and final victory over Hitler and the Reich. Lola passed away in 2014 at the age of 91 but her legacy lives on through her family and her many admirers.