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one thing I remember, I assume my parents told me something, what I remember is being after the war we moved to Paris. I was more than eleven years old. I remember the synagogue where my parents took me. My father, especially, had me go. I had to go, I didn't have any choice. I very much hated it.

Q: You hated it?

A: Oh, yeah.

Q: You're eleven, so that would be about 1948?

A: deg48, deg49,

Q: You said your parents moved to Paris in deg49?

A: Yes. No, I moved in "47, they followed a year later in deg48. And then they joined a synagogue and led a more Jewish life.

Q: You observed Sabbath and --?

A: No, no. They just went to the shul. I think for the holidays or something like that. They were not observant at all.

Q: You didn't go to Jewish school?

A: No. But we observed the holidays and we fasted on Yom Kippur. Mostly Yom Kippur, it seems like and the Passover. Those are the two holidays.

Q: So there was never any sudden revelation to you after the war that you were Jewish

?

A: You know something must have happened but I cannot remember.

Q: You don't know why they left the village?

A: Ostensibly, it was because the village had only one small school where all the children were together from the age of seven to the age of fourteen. Of course my education in there was not excellent and my mother was worried that I couldn't stay there if I wanted -- if 1 was going to college. But this is not the true reason because I could have gone to which was close and spent a week there and come back home for the weekends. The real reason was that my mother really disliked the village very much. She felt lost in it. She came -- she didn't like the people. She didn't like to practice medicine and --.

Q: Why didn't she like the people? Just because their background was so different from her own?

A: Yes. She felt they were peasants and she had nothing in common. My father, on the other side, very much liked it. Liked it there, liked to be a doctor. He was one of these old fashioned doctors who go around. He went around by bicycle at first, then on a motorcycle, then in a car.

He taught me how to drive the car. When I was seven years old, he let me use the wheel. He

liked it there but he moved pretty much against his will.

Q: So your father was driving a car during the war?

A: Oh, yes. Yeah, we had a car. Even in the beginning of the -- there might be a picture of it. It was a big Maitron. It was called a great big coach. I remember vividly. It was gray and it had the black on the side of it. It had the black stepping place you know with rubber with lines like that. It was a great big car.

Q: And he could take that on his rounds?

A: Yes. My mother took that car when we left, just before the Germans came, I guess. People were just leaving, running away from the Germans. So she went down south towards Brittany, towards San . Then there were a lot of bombings apparently. I don't recall much about it at all. But my first memory is being under a table with my grandmother holding on to my sleeve. I wanted to run out and she was hanging on to me.

Q: That was in Brittany?

A: Yes. That was during the evacuation.

Q: Oh, so your village was evacuated when the German army first came in?

A: I don't think the village, I think some people left.

Q: Who could get away?

A: Yes.

Q: And you went with your grandparents?

A: And my mother.

Q: Your grandparents were your mother's parents?

A: Yes.

Q: They joined her from Russia?

A: Yes, they came in "36. After --they were no longer in Russia. They left at the Revolution and went to Harbin where there was a large Russian population. Then my grandmother ---

Q: Is that in France?

A: Harbin? No, it's in China.

Q: Habeen?

A: Yes, H-a-r-b-i-n.

Q: Is that near Shanghai? Because I know a lot of Jews were there (?)

A: A lot of Jews went to Harbin. It's somewhere near -- I don't know exactly where it is. I saw it on the map, yeah.

Q: Okay, right.

A: But it was a large Russian colony. Then the -- I think my grandmother opened a restaurant.

They survived as well as they could. But then, I think, the Japanese, you know there was trouble with the Japanese at that time. So my mother told them to come to France, asked them to come and they did. So they arrived just before I was born.

Q: So your grandparents helped to take care of you?

A: Yes.

Q: Did your mother leave the house for her practice?

A: No.

Q: She was helping "

A: In the house, yes. My father was the only one.

Q: Do you have any memories of patients coming to the house?

A: Oh, yes, oh yes. Because the office was in the house. You know in a small village, everybody knows everybody. I have memories of going on rounds with my father and being impressed how special he was. You know people would look forward to him coming and they would always greet him by Monsieur Doctor and offer him coffee and schnapps. You know coffee and

. He joked with them. He was a very pleasant guy.

Q: Even in that continued during the war, the relationships?

A: This was also the war, yes. He was not allowed to practice because he was a foreigner. So he practiced anyway but another doctor signed his papers for him.

Q: No one suspected that he, you said he came from Romania?

A: Yes.

Q: And no one suspected that he might be a Romanian Jew?

A: And he spoke German. This was his ---. Oh, I asked. I have kept in touch with one family in the village. The mother Francoise has known me since I was six or so. I'm very close to her.

She's sick. So I asked her husband one time. You know how -- that it was surprising that nobody knew that we were Jews. He laughed and he said, what do you mean, nobody knew?

Everybody knew. So I asked him how come nobody turned us in. He really struck me when he

said, we're not animals, we don't do that.

Q: So I didn't realize how very closely knit, --- the photos ---. Was it because, did your father probably and mother probably had foreign accents?

A: Oh, yes. Everybody had foreign accents. Even me when I was little because my first language was Russian.

Q: Well, I know that a lot of Jews were hidden by French who knew that they were Jewish. They

A: We didn't blame him.

Q: You stood out.

A: Yes, oh yes.

Q: Did you ever get the feeling or did your parents tell you after the war when you had grown up that they lived in fear that they would be discovered? That the Germans might .

A: Oh, yes.

Q: What did they say?

A: My father told a very strange story. He said that one time, one man came to him and said hey do you remember me? Apparently this was a man from J where my father was born and who knew him. My father was very frightened because he thought he had turned him in or blackmail or something. Then a few days later, this man was killed.

Q: By -- in what circumstances?

A: By a bomb or ---.

Q: Oh. I mean in a way it was risky to live in an occupied town?

A: It was very risky.

Q: They didn't have the freedom to go to some other place .

A: Yes.

Q: They didn't -- did you ever know why the decision wasn't made just to stay further south after they evacuated? Did

A: Yes. I don't know why they decided to stick it out. My parents are very bold in many ways. I guess they . Even though they must have worried a lot, they still chose to hide in this fashion which was quite risky.

Q: Your mother and your father's family, did they have siblings?

A: My mother had no siblings. She had cousins but she had no relationships with anybody.

Q: So she didn't communicate with any of the people that ?

A: Right. My father had --. He has a brother whom I met once, who lives now in Munich and who was taken prisoner. His mother came to visit right after I was born and then died of cancer. He has -- my father, I believe -- has an older sister who is in Israel and an older brother. But I don't know anything about them. He never kept in touch with anybody. Except his brother Otto who lives in Munich. When I was 18, he came to visit. That was the only time I saw him.

Q: But you don't know where Otto spent the war?

A: He was in a camp, I don't know.

Q: ;

A: My grandfather may have been killed by the Germans. He was a merchant in J but I know nothing about him. What kind of things he had or what.

Q: So is there anything else you can think of, stories ?

A: I remember there was a --. Well we were home. We all had a very bad time before the end of the war. But that was not because we were Jews. It was because someone killed a couple of Germans -- soldiers. We had a little resistance.

Q: You did?

A: Yes. And my father was part of it.

Q: Oh, that's important. Do you know anything about that?

A: No. All I know is that the men had an agreement that they would -- if they were to be captured, they would all run away in the woods and resist. So I think some of the resistance killed two Germans and there was fighting at the end of the war. You know, the Germans were defeated then with treaty. So that one morning, I was woken up by my grandmother who shook me and said quick, quick, we have to run. She grabbed me by the hand and we went and hid in the outside with the chicken. The Germans had come. I don't know -- I have very few memories of it -- what I felt. I don't know if I knew that they had come to everybody or was only my family, thought they had come just for us. But as we were running, my grandmother and I were hidden but the Germans saw us and they shot towards us but didn't wound anybody. My mother stayed in the house with the papers. I think she was trying to hide papers. My father and grandfather run away towards the woods to meet the other men. The Germans shot towards them too but missed. So that no one run away. They came back. The lady who lived in the house just stood there. I remember she stood there outside and she was screaming. After that they took us and they put us in front of the Marie and the women were -- they separated men, women and children who were with a teacher. They were going to take us all to Germany in trucks. But apparently the priest talked them out of it.

Q: You don't know -- that was in 1945?

A: Yeah.

Q: But it was before the war ended, close to liberation ?

A: Very close.

Q: Would you say, a couple of weeks ?

A: I would say maybe less than that.

Q: And you remember standing in front of the 4

A: Yeah, yeah.

Q: And they had separated you into 2

A: Yes. I remember seeing older kids cry so I cried too.

Q: Naturally.

A: I remember seeing Francoise walking by and she was very pregnant. That was a frightening time. But again it was not directly personal. I have no recollection of anti-Semitism for instance.

Q: You don't?

A: No.

Q: Nothing? Even any comments, I mean 2

A: Sure there were, there was. But I think I was too young. Or either too young or I forgot, I don't know.

Q: Were people in the village, , were they aware of all the horrible things that were happening? I mean, was there any perception of the roundup of Jews in Paris? Any deportations?

A: I don't remember anything, myself. I don't think I knew anything in particular. I may have overheard things and then tried to put them together in a child's way. But personally I was not aware. When I grew up I did not want to be. It took me -- it's really -- it's when my daughter was seventeen that she wanted to know about concentration camps, about what happened. I told her I didn't know, I didn't want her to know. She need to know because she didn't have to live through it. You know she was here in America, she was fine. But she didn't believe me -- I mean she wanted to know. So she started reading books. I started to have nightmares. Then I felt I didn't want to leave her alone maybe with all this information. Or I felt it was cowardly of my part not to learn when she learned and she was quite young. So then I started very cautiously to inform myself a little more. By now, now I've caught up.

Q: When was that?

A: She's 24 so ----.

Q: Well, maybe when you talk to your father the next time you're around him, you could ask him if he has any details ?

A: Well, it was a very small village. You know, so I think --.

Q: But you were never aware of strangers passing through there or anything, that they were helping or -- 2

A: I think the American soldier, you know with the parachute -- I don't know. I think he died but I'm not sure. I remember there was talk about an American soldier that was helped and hid. I don't know if he was that one or another one. Now who could have passed in my house, people came all the time because patients were there all the time so I would not know who is who.

Q: How did the -- did the peasants usually pay your father and mother in kind or did they have cash?

A: No, they -----. Yeah, I think they paid in money, they paid in goods. Those who couldn't pay, didn't pay.

Q: But they were able to make a living in this little village or did people come from a larger surrounding area?

A: From the larger surroundings. The village and --. Because there was one doctor in which was seven kilometers away. That's the doctor that signed the papers. And then -- that's it. I think there was just those two for quite a large amount of people. Of course people didn't have transportation, you know, in those days. They had bicycles but cars were very rare. So my father went on all rounds, he was gone most of the day seeing people. He also spoke German so he spoke with the Germans. They also treated Germans.

Q: They did?

A: Oh, yeah.

Q: How many Germans were actually occupying ?

A: They weren't near us, of course, because of the house, you know. Feels like there were -- I couldn't give you a number.

Q: What did they actually do 2

A: All this what I'm telling you is the memory of the child and never thought about so what I would say to you, they just sat there and were given things. They didn't work. They didn't work like the rest of the people. I think they literally did pretty much just did that. They were occupying us and I'm sure living off the land.

Q: Do you remember any of them as being mean or kind or ----?

A: I remember playing with them, playing with some of them. I have a feeling that they sort of -- were more or less I guess like the rest of us. We didn't have SS. I think we had young men who might have been just as unhappy to be in France as we were unhappy to have them there.

Q: So you didn't get the sense that people were particularly bitter about --?

A: Oh, everybody hated the Boche, you know. I think compared to the stories I hear of what happened in Paris where literally you saw people shot in the street or treated very inhumanely, I think we hated the Boche because they were there, because they were the enemy. But I don't think there were any incidents in our village.

Q: No one died during the war ?

A: I think, the day they took us, I remember my father was walking around with the Red Cross on his arm. He took care of somebody who was wounded, I know that. But I don't know anything else.

Q: But you said that you were released pretty quickly all of a sudden ?

A: To me it felt all of a sudden. I don't know what people knew. I remember my parents listening to the radio. You know, we covered all the windows because there were lots of planes going by.

Now not very far from us, there were blockhouse you know where they were sending V-2's to England? So they were trying to bomb those out, the Allies. But in our village, there was nothing.

Q: So you heard planes going over, ?

A: Oh, yes. And shooting. I don't know exactly where. Or maybe it was that one incident. But for a very long time, if I heard gun shot, I would really jump out of my skin but not any more.

Eventually -- or planes in the night.

Q: Do you remember anything about this priest ? So he lived in a house?

A: Yeah, we had the church. And he was in the church, for all I know. I tell you that's where he lived, I don't know.

Q: So you were brought to him to be baptized?

A: My parents say no. That he just gave us some papers. I'm not sure I would trust that. I think I may well have been baptized.

Q: Well, you've got several coverage protection!

A: I'm good either way.

Q: Let's see. Is there anything else you want to say about ?

A: I am very grateful because since that time I've heard so many stories. What happened to so many people that grew up that way. That there was more than just the darkness because you have to be living it. I need to keep a view of the world as not entirely dangerous or evil. The fact that we were saved, I think, to me makes a big difference. I'm here. But also not only because I survived physically but I think because it allowed me to survive psychologically and to want to do the work I do. I'm , to me, it's very important to help other people and to help them survive.

Q: Are you -- do you see survivors ?

A: No, I never have because I see people who have been traumatized but in other ways. I have tried to distance myself. For a long time, I didn't marry a Jew, I never went to the synagogue. I think I tried not to be a Jew because it was so dangerous to me. Now I joined a group of hidden children and so that has made a big difference.

Q: In Washington?

A: Yes. It's all over America.

Q: Yes, I have talked to . She was a Catholic nun and she ,

A: Yes. Once we lived in the suburbs I went to school. I spent a year in London. I was going to be an interpreter because I spoke Russian and I spoke some English at the time.

Q: I forgot to ask you what language you spoke in your house?

A: I spoke Russian and French, mostly Russian. French with my father.

Q: Oh. That must have distinguished you very much. Were you perfectly bilingual?

A: Not in the beginning, afterwards, yes. The kids used to call me Russian Rabbit which I didn't like. Then they would make fun of me saying I was a Russian rabbit. You know there is a kind of white rabbit with white eyes that's called a Russian rabbit. So they would call me that and they would say I have white eyes.

Q: Maybe they thought you were just Russian emigrants? ?. That was probably

A: Yes. I remember in Paris I joined the -- it wasn't in Paris, it was the suburbs so it was like a little town, like Bethesda. I joined the Cub Scout, oop -- Girl Scout. My mother instructed me at this point to tell it was run by a priest, to tell him that I was an Orthodox Russian. He asked me what do Orthodox Russian do? I said I don't know. I was 12 years old and I went by myself. I was 13. So he got very angry at me and told me not to lie. That it was evil.

Q: Did you have a lot of conflict because you didn't really have a religious identity or --?

A: Yes, very much, very much, yeah. Because then I ended up in the Girl Scout troop, a Protestant girl. So I have never been able to identify with a religious group because when I was a child. ---

you know you have a child. I don't know whether you are Jewish or --

Q: Well, "m--I'm --.

A: When I was a child, I liked the church a lot. Perhaps the priest was good or perhaps the schoolteacher was religious and took us but it always presented me. I mean my two -- I was growing up with this guy with his big beard of course and sitting on the clouds and was rather stern. But then there was Jesus who loved little children and took care of all of us. All we needed to do was to be good. That was simple enough and Jesus was very forging and understanding. There was the Virgin Mary and it was a statue and she was so beautiful and she was wearing this blue cape and her hands were around, with such a sweet expression, that I was very attached to that aspect of the church. I felt safe. I always felt | would go to Heaven. I was pretty good little girl. But one time, I think in front of my mother, I crossed myself, she was furious. Because, of course, I can't understand her but it was difficult for me to accept what she stood for because it made no sense to me. I remember sitting in the synagogue and there was -- we were sitting up on top -- because it was a conservative -- and so I was looking at the head of the men. I was looking at this rabbi who was short and had a beard and kept moving back and forth and kept talking and talking and talking and talking and . Then the women in my days, were nothing. The wife of the rabbi was shaved. She had no hair. I knew she had no hair but she was wearing a wig. So I never saw what she looked like without her wig but it felt to me like it was a terrible thing. The only other person I ever knew who was shaved, her head was shaved, was the lady across the street who was a spinster. She met some nice German soldier. I didn't know exactly what she did but obviously she had an affair with a German soldier. After the liberation, they shaved her like a billiard ball.

Q: Did they shave much?

A: They shaved her head.

Q: Oh, oh, yes, of course.

A: Because she had slept with a German.

Q: And you remember that?

A: Oh, yes. It was a terrible story. You know everybody was saying was her name, how awful what she did. I was eight years old so you know, to me it was --. I just knew it was terrible because people said it was terrible. She looked terrible with that thin hair. Then this, wife of the rabbi, also has no hair.

Q: So you make this connection? That's great. So you were slightly confused?

A: Yeah. Because to me, it really didn't mean ---. And then there was Yom Kippur and you had to be afraid because God may or may not grant you another year. You know, without much understanding of the Jewish religion, you have this 12 year old child, who wasn't given any explanation very much, coming from a religion that is much warmer and softer; it seemed to me much more tolerant of children. In this religion, there was just this fierce God who didn't seem to care, you know, who killed people right and left in the Bible and was looking at me and saying maybe you'll live another year or not. I never felt safe.

Q: That's interesting. Is there anything else that you want to tell? You told me about ?

A: I remember the store, Francoise had the store and she was selling everything. You know, cloths, candy, buttons, margarine, we had no butter, whatever, she sold it in her store. I remember looking and there was glass in front of ---. She kept things behind the counter and then there was glass like that. She had two children too. I would go to her house every day and I would look at the chocolate behind the glass with such longing. She said I would like to give you some but I can't because everything was rationed. So I was thinking of this chocolate so near and so forbidden.

Q: That would be a ----. So, in Paris ---.

A: In Paris, so I went to church. No, I did not go to church. I wished I would go to church. I was the only Jew in my class. All my friends went to church and then they had First Communion.

Q: What kind of a school did you --?

A: B.C. ?? You know it was First Communion or Second Communion and they had those beautiful dresses, all in white with veils. Oh God. And I wanted so much to be part of that. To have a dress like that, to be beautiful but, of course, I couldn't. I finished school.

Q: Do you remember any anti-Semitism at that time ?

A: You know, I have a feeling that I wasn't about to deal with that --- I have no memory. It seems unreal that I have such a ---.

Q: Did people know you were Jewish at ?

A: I think so, yeah. Suddenly I didn't go to church. Suddenly I couldn't -- I never wanted to say I was an Orthodox. I think my mother wanted me to -- maybe I didn't talk about it but I didn't have any religion to replace it. I had no idea what the Orthodox Russian did, I'd never been in on of those churches so it didn't -- you know I couldn't carry that. The girl scouts were Protestant. I liked that too, it was nice. I went to church with the Protestants. If they went, I went. By that time, it didn't matter. When I finished my baccalaureate, I came to London for a year, came back to France, moved out, lived in Paris till I was 23. Then I came to America for six weeks vacation. But I didn't go back. I thought I would learn more English because my accent was terrible then. It's still sizeable now but then it was remarkable. No one could understand me pretty much. So I stayed as an au pair with a family in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Then I went to summer school in Stanford to see the country and study. Then I decided I was going to be a psychologist because in my free time when I was living in Cambridge, I had the whole day free. So I marched myself to Harvard and just sat and listened to the courses and found my

(End of Side A) I met my husband. I was about to go back to France and I met him because he was driving back to Boston. He was going to school and I needed a ride. So somebody introduced us and we got married. It was six weeks later, he asked me to marry him and I said yes. So we got married.

Not really because we had two children. And we lasted ten years considering we were strangers in many ways.

Q: Well De Long, that's a French name. So he was French?

A: No, he was American from Iowa. And his family came -- they were Huguenots that came to Iowa very many years ago. So he was a little more French than me. He may have had droplets of French blood.

Q: You were both members of persecuted religions?

A: That's right.

Q: The connection.

A: And we had two children whom we did not bring up in a religious way.

Q: Where were you living?

A: We lived in Cambridge for six years. My husband was going to Harvard and I went to B.U. and got a degree. Then we came over here. We had two small children then. He came to an age during the Vietnam War so he wouldn't be drafted. Then we divorced in "78. I stayed for many reasons. The main reason was not to separate the children from their father and not to break their life completely apart by starting not only with another father. We stayed close -- we always stayed close. With another father, a new country and a new language, I thought it's bad enough for kids. So we had an agreement who would stay around and we did. We remained put until last year. Last year, my ex-husband moved to Atlanta. I stayed around in Washington.

I started a private practice after | divorced which was not ---. As I grow older, I feel more and more Jewish. My daughter considers herself Jewish. My son, not. She's working in Tucson with Russian refugees. You know, the Jewish refugees. She's learned to speak Russian on her own. Myson --. So she does pretty much the work of a social worker or a psychologist, a mother. My son has studied industrial psychology. He's now working with a firm with -- in the area of handicapped but in a -- how big firms deal with handicapped people -- with sexual harassment. I guess I am still struggling with where I belong but it seems like more and more I feel that I -- I feel a Jewish identity but not religion .I am less and less a believer. I don't think I believe in God any more. Unfortunately, I can't believe in Christ any more which makes me sad but he was too much of a childhood. It's like a fairy tale now. It's a man, not a boy but it's a fairy tale and one day we have to give him up.

Q: Well, why -- what do you think ?

A: They were with Jewish. I always had my Christmas tree. Good question. It's more internal.

Q: Events happen in the Middle East interest you very much, for example? What happens to the fate of ?

A: Oh, yes. To me, it feels -- it is heartbreaking. I have never been to Israel but it's heartbreaking that they are now killing. They were sometimes killing children. There is a good deal of brutality -- that the people in the Middle East were -- lost their land. Yet, on the other hand, where are the Jews to go? They need their country. They need a place. We need a place in case something happens, we need a home. So how this is going to end, I don't know but it's ---. I'm

afraid it will end very badly for Israel. I don't know, to me it feels like it's something that I cannot avoid. It's where I was born, who 1am. Maybe just wisdom that you're better off just being more what you are rather than fighting it. As I get older. It's not a terrible source of comfort to me unfortunately, but there are no others that I know, that would be any better.

Q: Right. Well, is there anything else?