Kestenberg Archive

ML was born in 1937 in Paris. Her parents immigrated to France from Poland - her father was a physician, and a Communist. The family moved to Jarnac, a small town in France where they were the only Jewish family. ML first went to school at the age of three and adored it. She finished school in France two years ahead of her age group. In 1941/1942, she and her mother tried to cross the line with a young woman, who agreed to take them across as members of her family. However, she changed her mind and they had to hide in the woods, until they were arrested by the French militia, but her mother convinced them they are not Jewish, and they were released. They managed to get to a safe house in St. Victurnien, where her father was waiting for them, with other Jewish families, and stayed there until 1944. They had problems finding food during this period. ML suffered a panic while at the safe house, because she was sure that the Germans had found them. The family pretended to be Catholic, went to church and ML was sent to a Sunday school. Only at the age of eleven she found out she was Jewish. ; Her mother was making soaps and her father became a tutor while they were hiding. In late 1943 her parents started to “disappear” and go to a nearby town, where her father returned to work as a physician and her mother joined him and worked as a nurse, and ML was left with elderly couple. When ML was seven, her father committed suicide. Then, in 1946, she and her mother came to America. She finished school in America four years ahead, and finished medical school at the age of 18. ; She always was scared of being hunted by dogs. She has an ambivalent relationship with her mother: she feels rejected by her mother and feels uncomfortable touching her. She claims that her mother wanted her to suffer after the war by taking her to war movies and making her read documents and books about concentration camps. She suffered from nightmares and became suicidal in adolescence.