Mary M. Holocaust testimony (HVT-792) interviewed by Gabriele Schiff and Gloria Demby,

Videotape testimony of Mary M., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1913. She recalls attending school in Łódź and university in Vienna; her assimilated, wealthy and cultured family background; her mother's death in 1934; cordial relations with non-Jews; her sense that events in Germany were distant despite contact with German refugees; and marriage on July 1, 1939. Mrs. M. recounts German invasion; learning from a co-worker that Germans were taking Jewish hostages; escaping to Warsaw with her husband and father; the walling-in of the ghetto; her job in a factory through which she had the use of a phone; beginning of the mass deportations; obtaining false papers; escape through sewers; inability to save her father; incidents of blackmail and bribery; being hidden by a Polish count who was active in the Polish resistance; the 1944 uprising and resulting siege of Warsaw; her husband's participation as a Polish officer; and leaving Warsaw in the forced evacuation. She describes hiding in Polish villages; help received from peasants; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to Łódź in 1945; escape to the American zone of Germany; work for UNRRA; and the tremendous impact of the first Seder of her life held for UNRRA personnel.