http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/2250695582

Amalia [sic] Dembitzer "young child in hiding in Belgium."

Amalie Dembitzer, a Ph.D. candidate in literature, was born in Amsterdam, Holland. She went into hiding from the age of 2 to 6 in Belgium. Amalie Dembitzer was born to Polish Jews living in Amsterdam in 1939. She has no memory of her parents, because she was placed in hiding around 2 with two younger siblings in Belgium. She recalls three or four different hiding places and being sick and "a bundle of nerves." She felt unwanted and recalls being in dark places. For one year she was not allowed outside or near windows. She experienced affection with two of her caretakers and is still in touch with one of them. At end of the war and her parents dead, her aunt came to claim her. Her aunt was married to an Italian Catholic, and was 50, childless, and without experience with children. She felt it her duty to adopt her sister's children. Amalie was so ill with asthma throughout her childhood in Italy that she was deemed incapable of survival. Timid and afraid to be herself, Amalie is now reclaiming her own and her parents' roots by working on a dissertation on the Rituals and Customs in the World of Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Open All Close All