Family honors matriarch on her 100th birthday

Diana Wolle, a native of Poland, lived under Nazi occupation in 1940s

BY REBECCA MORTON Staff Writer

Diana Wolle is a survivor and in her 100 years she has not only witnessed great technological ad- vances, she has also seen the horrors of the Holocaust.

Family members salute Diana Wolle on the occasion of her 100th birthday. Diana and her late husband, Sigmund, survived difficult times in Europe during World War II and eventually immigrated to the United States. Family members salute Diana Wolle on the occasion of her 100th birthday. Diana and her late husband, Sigmund, survived difficult times in Europe during World War II and eventually immigrated to the United States. On March 18, Diana was treated to an extra special birthday with all of her family in attendance, including her three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Diana’s son and daughter-in-law are Jay and Natty Wolle of Manalapan.

Diana’s strength is an inspiration, her daughter-in-law said. The will to survive the horrors ofWorldWar II and to make it to 100 years old is amazing, Natty Wolle added.

Born on March 18, 1908, Diana Lewaowitz grew up in the city of Lodz, Poland. The young Jewish woman worked as a dental assistant and dental mechanic. In December 1934, Diana celebrated her marriage to Sigmund Wolle, but five years later, their lives would change dramatically.

In a history of their time in Poland written by Sigmund Wolle before his death in 2001, he described the Nazi invasion of their city in 1939.

Jay Wolle provided the history that was written by his father to Greater Media Newspapers.

Forced by the Nazis to wear yellow stars of David that identified them as Jews, the members of the Jewish community of Lodz watched as their houses of worship were destroyed and their businesses and homes were confiscated. Sigmund Wolle said the poorest section of the city, an area known as Baluty, was cleared of its residents and set up as a ghetto.

As she watched people lose their possessions, Diana used her background in dental work to protect her diamond ring.

Retelling a family story, Jay Wolle said Diana drilled a small hole in her husband’s tooth, into which she placed the precious stone. With the diamond covered by a filling, no one ever knew of the stone’s existence until the couple made their way to the United States, where it was removed and placed in a ring.

Jay Wolle carries that ring with him today.

In Lodz, the Wolles were ordered from their home and sent to the ghetto. There they were forced to work for the Nazis, helping to manufacture goods such as ammunition and uniforms.

Natty Wolle said Diana and Sigmund did what they had to do in order to survive in that dangerous time.

The couple remained in the Lodz ghetto until 1944 when the Nazis closed it and sent most of the residents to the Auschwitz concentration camp, also in Poland. Sigmund Wolle wrote that a group of 500 workers were not sent to the concentration camp, he and Diana among them, but instead were sent to Dresden, Germany.

One April night more than 200 American and English planes bombed Dresden. During the bombing, the couple and the other prisoners were marched along the Elbe river toward Czechoslovakia by the Nazi soldiers. Those who could not walk were shot or left behind.

The march into Czechoslovakia was grueling, and at one point Diana Wolle was kicked in the back by a soldier, an injury that remained with her for years. Upon their arrival in the new country, Sigmund Wolle reported, those who had survived the march were crammed into the Terezin ghetto.

Sigmund Wolle wrote that on May 8, 1945, the Russian Red Army entered Terezin and liberated its residents. Soon after the ghetto’s liberation there was an outbreak of typhus and dysentery, and Diana and Sigmund decided to make an escape for Prague. Finding the Red Cross in the capital city, Diana was placed in a sanatorium for a week to recover and the couple was provided with money.

After Diana’s release from the sanatorium, the couple returned to their home in Lodz, which was now occupied by others. The family at their former home was kind enough to let them stay in one room and regain some of their belongings, Jay Wolle explained.

With Poland’s government now under the rule of the Communists, the Wolles traveled to Germany with false papers and made their way to Stuttgart, which was occupied by the United States. The Wolles eventually immigrated to Brooklyn, N.Y., where, Jay, their only child, was born in 1949.

Jay Wolle said he was 15 when he learned about his parents’ life in Poland. He said his mother has difficulty speaking about those tumultuous times in her life.I

n 2001, Diana Wolle moved to Manalapan to be closer to her family, following the death of her husband. She now lives at CareOne in Holmdel.

Lauren Vernon, a Marlboro resident and Diana Wolle’s granddaughter, was amazed by the story of her grandmother’s life.

“I was really impressed by her life and her ability to survive,” Vernon said, adding that to live for 100 years is a great accomplishment.