Never Tell Anyone You’re Jewish: My Family, the Holocaust and the Aftermath

This is a story of two Jewish families in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Holocaust. They were joined by marriage after the war and Maria was born soon after. Not surprisingly her mother initially urged her to hide her Jewishness. In old age she relented, recognising that testimonies make history, and the lives of those who perished should be celebrated. The book is compiled from survivor memories, unfinished memoirs, letters, photographs, and historical archives. Maria tells of relatives like aunt Lula, who was denounced and shot and her maternal grandmother, who died in the gas chambers of Belzec. There are uplifting stories too, like her great uncle’s survival on Schindler’s List. Maria documents the kindness of strangers, miraculous escapes, courage, guile, strength, and resilience. Her parents adopted different strategies for survival, and afterwards responded very differently to the traumas they had suffered. The last part of the book covers Maria’s early life in Stalinist Poland and her family’s emigration to Edinburgh, where she and her parents led fulfilled lives as scientists. Despite this, the traumas continue to ripple through her life and following generations.