When I was asked to create a painting for a company involved in immigration, I began searching for a story that would inspire. That’s when I came across Max and Trude Heller. I had long known about their civic impact on Greenville, but had never heard their love story. Once I did, I was captivated.

It began in 1937 in Vienna, Austria. Max was 17, Trude was 14, and after a dance and a tennis match, he boldly told her he would marry her one day. But their world was soon torn apart by World War II and the Holocaust.

After their brief but fateful meeting, Max and Trude were separated. Max, sensing the danger ahead, managed to escape thanks to a chance encounter on a train with an American woman named Mary Mills. She was from Greenville, South Carolina, and offered to help if he ever needed it. When the time came, Max reached out, and she arranged for him to come to the U.S., securing him a job in a textile mill.

Trude’s journey was far more dangerous. She and her mother fled Austria, crossing into Belgium while her father disappeared, running from the Nazis. It took more than a year before she and her mother made it to New York.

Through all this, Max and Trude stayed in touch by mail. In 1940, Max took a bus to visit her. Just as he knocked on her door, a telegram arrived from Trude’s father. It read, “I am alive.” Trude would later call Max her good luck charm.

By then, Max had worked his way up in the textile mill. When Trude’s father finally arrived in New York, Max again asked for her hand in marriage. Her family was hesitant about Greenville, so Max gave them a tour—driving in circles to make the town feel bigger. Whatever he did, it worked. They moved to Greenville, and in August 1942, nearly six years after Max first declared his love, they were married.

Together, they built a life dedicated to family, community, and service. Max became a successful businessman, then Greenville’s mayor, shaping the city into the thriving place it is today. Trude devoted herself to civic work, the arts, and educating others about the Holocaust.

But at the heart of everything, they had each other. Their daughter, Francie, once said that on Sunday mornings, Max and Trude would dance to the music playing in their house—just as they had all those years ago in Vienna.

Their story is one of love, survival, and devotion—not just to each other but to their community and the world around them. As I painted, I found myself inspired not only by them but by the hope that love like theirs still exists, standing strong through even the hardest of times.