LYNNWOOD— As Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, helping turn the tide of World War II, 9-year-old Barbara Tillman was hiding from Nazi persecution in occupied Poland. Eighty-two years later, the Quail Park Lynnwood resident still remembers the phosphorous bombs that lit the night sky, the smell drifting from a nearby concentration camp, and the constant fear that her family would be discovered. Her survival through war, displacement and trauma would ultimately inspire a 50-year career helping others heal from their own hardships.
Tillman was born in 1935, four years before the start of World War II. As a girl she recalls vividly the day Germans entered her home country of Poland. She was staying at her grandparent’s house at the time, who hid her in the bathtub filled with a mattress and pillows. After a while she emerged from the bathroom, shocked to see that it was “daylight” outside, though she was certain it should be night. She later learned that this “daylight” was the effect of phosphorous bombs – to see where the railroads were so they could destroy them.
Tillman’s mother was Jewish but converted to Catholicism when she married. Still, being ethnically Jewish, and having brown eyes, the Nazis didn’t care.
“I didn’t learn of my heritage until after the war. But I knew my eyes being brown, they would pick you up and take you to a concentration camp, or just execute you somewhere,” said Tillman. “Brown eyed people they felt were either Jewish, or gypsy, or something. So, you weren’t going to survive.”…