Ada M. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4003)

Videotape testimony of Ada M., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1933, an only child. She recounts her family's affluence; a close, extended family; German invasion; her father's futile attempt to flee to the Soviet Union; anti-Jewish restrictions; ghettoization; staying home when her parents went to work; being caught in a children's round-up; release of all the children when her father bribed some officials; her father obtaining false papers for her and having a priest instruct her so she could pass as a non-Jew; being smuggled out of the ghetto to hide with non-Jews; a visit from her father; seeing the ghetto burn during the uprising; her host family's expulsion during the Polish uprising (she could not go with them); staying with several families in a village; constant fear of discovery; attending church; liberation by Soviet troops; living with a family in Grójec; attending school; fleeing in 1947 due to sexual harassment by her host; traveling to Warsaw; visiting the first family that hid her (they had many of her parents' belongings and would not return anything); assistance from the Joint; reunion with an uncle; adoption by him; their emigration to Israel in 1950; marriage to an Israeli; the birth of her children; being very over protective of them due to her experiences; not sharing her experiences, but more recently telling them a bit; a close friendship with a German couple; and recently visiting Warsaw with them. Ms. M. discusses keeping a diary after the war which she then burned, wanting to forget her past, and many years of waiting and searching for her father, not accepting that he was killed.