Early Life and Education
Shiller was born in 1947 and raised on Long Island in New York, growing up in a middle-class family. Her parents were home owners. Her father, Morris Shiller, was a self-employed chemist who according to Shiller "perfected fake suede." Morris emigrated to the United States from Latvia and lost every member of his family in the Holocaust, with the exception of a brother who did not turn up until 20 years after World War II. Shiller's mother was Sara (née Trop), Sara was born and raised in Belarus, where she lived through various occupations, including by the Germans, Polish, Russians, and Soviet Union. Sara came to America through Ellis Island at the age of six. The Great Depression stoked Sara's lifelong interest in economic and civil rights. She became a nurse and married Morris, in 1936. She died at the age of 96 in the summer of 2011.
Helen Shiller earned her high school diploma in 1965 from Woodstock County School in Vermont, the same progressive boarding school that Pete Seeger's children attended. Shiller graduated with a degree in history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she was active in the anti-Vietnam war movement and in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In 2005, Shiller graduated from DePaul University's School for New Learning Master's Program, where her focus was public policy.
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