Nelly S. Toll, writer, artist, teacher, Holocaust survivor and activist, dies at 88

Nelly S. Toll, 88, of Old Bridge, N.J., a writer, artist, and teacher who as a Jewish child hid in Poland during the Holocaust, died Saturday, Jan. 30, of cardiac arrhythmia and a pulmonary embolism at the Raritan Bay Medical Center in Old Bridge.

After going into hiding with her mother in a secret room in the apartment of Polish Catholics during World War II, Dr. Toll went on to spend the rest of her life writing, teaching, painting, and speaking about the Holocaust and other important social issues.

“Her fight for social justice and the obliteration of anti-Semitism remained her passion until her last breath,” her family wrote in a tribute.

Born in Lwow, Poland, on April 19, 1932, Dr. Toll spent more than a year when she was a girl with her mother in the tiny space in Poland after they failed to escape the Nazi invasion. Her father, brother, and other relatives had disappeared — presumably murdered — and she spent her hours in hiding in 1943-44 by writing stories, and passages in her diary, and painting more than 65 watercolor pictures.

Her paintings imagined what it would have been like to attend school, have playmates, and visit the countryside.

“There was danger around us all the time,” Dr. Toll told The Inquirer in a 1994 interview. “My mother and I could see through a window to the outside and saw the Nazis marching captured Jews down the street. When we saw that, we knew they were doomed. And there were a few times when we were close to being captured during house searches.”

Later, her diary was adapted into a play that was produced at several venues, and her art, to which she added for the rest of her life, was displayed around the world, including at the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, and the German Historical Museum in Berlin.

“If I should be killed,” Dr. Toll wrote in her diary, “I hope that my art will reach the whole world so they can see what really took place and remember.”

Dr. Toll emigrated to the United States after the war, and she met accountant Ervin Toll at a dance in Philadelphia. They were married, and lived in Pennsauken, Voorhees, and — for more than 40 years — in Cherry Hill, and raised their son, Jeff, and daughter, Sharon.

While her children were in high school, Dr. Toll earned a bachelor’s degree and teacher and guidance counselor certifications from Rowan College, formerly Glassboro State College. She received a master’s degree in education from Rutgers University, and, at age 67, a doctorate in reading, writing, and literacy from the University of Pennsylvania. She worked as an elementary schoolteacher, guidance counselor, and adjunct professor at Drexel University, Rutgers, and Penn.

Her memoir, Behind the Secret Window, based on her diary and illustrated with her own watercolors, was published in 1993. She also published When Memory Speaks: The Holocaust in Art in 1998, and Without Surrender: Art of the Holocaust in 1978.

Behind the Secret Window won the 1994 International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award, and a New York Times book review called it an “important and deeply moving document.”

“She was about never forgetting,” said her daughter, Sharon Segall. “She focused on education and art.”

Dr. Toll liked to invite other immigrants and those in need to her home for holiday meals and celebrations. She spoke out against bullying, discrimination, and marginalization, and always warned that words should not be used as weapons. She loved to spend time with her five grandchildren, often getting down on the floor with them to paint or read or play games. She took them to feed the ducks and talked about their careers when they got older.

“She was spontaneous, fun to be around,” said her son, Jeff Toll. “She was a force to be reckoned with.”

“She was a trailblazer,” said Gail Toll, her daughter-in-law. “She used art and words to transform people.”

In addition to her husband, children, and grandchildren, Dr. Toll is survived by a sister, two great-granddaughters, and other relatives.

Services were held Jan. 31.

Donations in her name may be made to Imagining a Better World, The Nelly Toll Story, DOCdance Productions LLC, 15247 Rayneta Dr., Sherman Oaks, Calif., 91403.