Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Erna Blitzer Gorman - April 26, 1984

An audio-taped interview with Erna Gorman, a Holocaust survivor, conducted in 1984. Erna was born in France in 1935. When the war broke out in 1939, her family was attending a wedding in Wisnice, Poland and since her father was a Polish citizen, they were unable to return to France. At some point, Erna's family (mother, father and sister), left Wisnice and moved to her maternal grandparents' home in Monastyriska, Ukraine. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Erna's family was placed in a ghetto but were able to escape to a nearby farm. For two years they hid in a Ukrainian farmer's barn and aided by the farmer, survived in hiding until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. Erna's mother however, was wounded during an air raid and died soon after. Erna, her sister, and her father passed through a series of DP camps and immigrated to the United States in 1953.

Link to Portraits of Honor Project

1. Introduction
2. Father's Family
3. Mother's Family
4. Living in Ukraine
5. Hiding During Pogroms
6. Hiding During Pogroms II
7. Ghetto
8. Playing
9. Hiding in the Barn
10. Life in the Barn
11. Life in the Barn II
12. Life in the Barn III
13. Life in the Barn IV
14. Liberation
15. Liberation II
16. Liberation III
17. Russian Soldiers
18. Death of Mother
19. Death of Mother II
20. Physical Healing
21. Hanging of Germans
22. DP Camps
23. Returning to France
24. Moving to United States
25. Telling Her Story
26. Telling Her Story II
27. Conclusion