Yolanda Avram Willis

October 2, 1934 – October 1, 2023

Birthplace: Salonika, Greece
Religious Identity: Jewish

“I was one of the lucky ones. I was a hidden child, like the famous hidden child Anne Frank. I was not hidden in an attic or a bunker. I was hidden in plain sight passing as a Christian.”

Yolanda Avram Willis (z”l) grew up in Larisa, Greece, and was hidden as a child during World War II, posing as a Christian from the age of six. In 1940, when the war came to Greece, she hid on the Greek island of Crete before moving on to Athens. She took the name “Julia” while she was in hiding. She hid for three and a half years until American, British, and French forces liberated Athens. She called the liberation a “joyous event.” After the war, she attended the American College in Athens, and then immigrated to the United States. She earned a master’s degree in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Sociology from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Yolanda worked as a manager, educator, and management consultant for 22 years. She had three children and four granddaughters. Her book, A Hidden Child in Greece: Rescue Stories of the Holocaust, was published in 2017.

“I arrived at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on an afternoon train and went to a clam bake by the lake. The university is built around two lakes, and I met my future husband there. He said it was a good thing my name wasn’t ‘Avram’ because he only remembered that my name was Yolanda. He had to go through the directory of summer
school students to find me.”

-Biography from “In Celebration of Life: The Living Legacy Project” (2016)

Yolanda passed away peacefully on Sunday, October 1st, 2023, one day before her 89th birthday.

The Holocaust Testimony Project

A Hidden Child in Greece: Rescue in the Holocaust

Six-year-old Yolanda Avram is rescued by righteous strangers during the Holocaust in Greece. This is her story of courage and survival in the context of dozens of other rescues and shows Jews saving themselves and others in audacious and often heroic ways. Her story is uplifting and focuses on those flickers of light in the vast darkness of evil, known in Greece as the Persecution. This little-known saga of the common folk outwitting the Third Reich is a powerful and important story, told simply and movingly in cinematic episodes. The book is incandescent with empathy and gratitude.

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