Mark O. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Mark O., who was born in Lwo?w, Poland on July 8, 1941. He relates his parents' stories of German occupation; his premature birth after his mother was beaten by Ukrainians; his father insisting upon a ritual circumcision despite the danger; his family fleeing to Turka in fall 1941; assistance from a German friend; traveling to Lublin with his mother with assistance from a Pole; and moving to Mielec with his parents who had false papers. Mr. O. describes his own memories of an isolated life in an apartment; numerous restrictions; his uncle hiding under the bed; liberation by Soviet troops; their move to Lublin; attending Polish school; learning he was Jewish when he repeated antisemitic remarks to his parents; living in a displaced persons camp near Prague, then in Munich; attending German and Jewish schools; his brother's birth; and their emigration to Israel, then to the United States in 1956. He discusses his sense of loneliness and darkness resulting from the war years; his parents' refusal to discuss this time with him; working with Holocaust survivors as a clinical psychologist; and his son's death at age seventeen which was reminiscent of the Holocaust for his family.

4 videocassettes