Marie O. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4093)

Videotape testimony of Marie O., an only child, who was born in Przemyśl, Poland in 1930. She recounts her family's affluence; her large extended family; attending a Jewish school; German invasion; bombings; Soviet occupation; her uncle financially supporting the family; German invasion in 1941; seeing soldiers beat her father; ghettoization; her father assisting the Judenrat; deportation of many of her extended family; her father arranging for her and her mother's escape, and then hiding with their non-Jewish dressmaker in 1942; obtaining false papers; moving to Lʹviv; a non-Jew blackmailing her mother; her father joining them; a Polish doctor treating him for tuberculosis; her father's death; his burial as a Catholic under a false name; a Jewish woman (her father's friend) committing suicide in their home; carrying her body back to her own apartment; a cousin joining them; her mother providing food for one of her father's friends; her mother's remarriage in 1943; liberation; receiving their property back from a Polish friend; moving to Kraków; adoption by her stepfather, against her wishes (she wanted to keep her father's name); joining Hashomer Hatzair in 1946; not emigrating to Israel due to her mother's wishes; studying medicine (Stanisław Lem was an influential tutor); her career as a psychiatrist; her stepfather's death in 1978, and her mother's death in 1988. Ms. O. discusses details of her family history; postwar emotional problems, including suicidal thoughts; and mixed feelings about her Jewish identity.