Rose O. Holocaust testimony (HVT-893) interviewed by Peggy Morton and Lilian Sicular

Videotape testimony of Rose O., the youngest of nine children, who was born in 1908 in Sierpc, Poland. She describes overt antisemitism; leaving school to help at home; one brother's emigration to the United States and another's to Paris in 1926; moving to Paris in 1930; and her sense of freedom and absence of antisemitism there. Mrs. O. recalls German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; once removing her star to attend the theater; deportation of Jewish men to Drancy; her brother and family fleeing to Grenoble; hiding from July 16, 1942, first alone, then with a woman and her child; their escape to a village in Deux Sevres; six months living openly; hiding in one room for a year because the villagers feared reprisals; and her nightmare foretelling her brother's death. Mrs. O. relates moving to the convent Bressuire, where she felt safer; working in the kitchen; terrible conditions and very hard work; the nuns' refusal to let her leave after liberation; her resulting breakdown; departure for Paris; re-establishing herself; marriage in 1947; and emigration with her son to New York in 1952. She discusses the fate of her family and her difficulties relating her experiences to her son.