Marta Goren
Holocaust survivor, Czortkow, Poland (Today located in Ukraine)
“Marta, my child, we have to separate. the situation has deteriorated and it’s no longer safe for you to stay at Czortkow. There are almost no Jews left in the ghetto and if the germans will found you they will defiantly kill you. As it seems, In a few more days I won’t even be allowed to continue working at the pharmacy so there is no way I could keep hiding you here in the basement. Therefore I decided to send you to Warshaw to live with the Schultz family. They are good friends of your father and will take good care of you.
My mother told me that while living with the Schultz I will have to live under an assumed identity:
My new name was Christine Grinavic and my nickname was Chrisia.
I was born in the countryside and was a Catholic Christian who went to church every Sunday to pray. I moved to live in Warshaw with my uncles because my ill mother couldn’t take care of me and because my school in the village was closed after the war broke out. My family wanted me to keep pursuing my education so they moved me to Warshaw to attend a new school.
For almost two years I lived under an assumed identity and attended a catholic school. Every morning before going to school I used to look at myself in the mirror and think: How is it that no one recognizes that I’m Jewish? What was my mother thinking when she sent me to live under this assumed identity? I wasn’t a blonde with blue eyes and my skin color was a little bit dark-hued but still, no one questioned my identity.
I think that deep inside I managed to play the role of Christine Grinavic because I truly believed in it. I knew that If I won’t play my part perfectly, I wouldn’t risk just my life but the lives of so many others who helped me so I did my best to portray myself as a nice Christian girl. It was the role of my life.”
For more information on Hidden Children during the Holocaust:
https://bit.ly/3HLOUYw