Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Michael Opas - [n.d.]

Sharing Story with Daughter

You have one daughter?

Yeah.

Do you have any other children?

No.

Have you talked to your daughter about this?

Yeah.

How did she accept or not accept this?

Well, she accepted it. She said--she tried to calm me down, and she said--well, like, like the others, "Try to forget it." I said, "I cannot forget it." Because when I talk to her about I had a son, I had a--"He was only four years old, you could have a brother today." She said, "Yeah, it's, it's, it's tragic that I don't..." because she's the only child--"That uh, I grew--I had to grow up as a only child. I had nobody to play with. I wish I had a brother." But out of, out of this, she didn't--she cannot, she cannot even comprehend it--that it's--that it was so terrible.

Mm-hm.

I remember when we watched, when we watched Eichmann's, Eichmann trial. We watched it on television. She sat and cried. She said, "Is this--I just couldn't believe it rea...it was really, it was really that--like it--like they say it was." Because the, she had--we had the witnesses uh, testifying. She sat and--sat and cried. "And you," she said, "you lived it through, you live it through." I said, "Yes."

What does your daughter do now?

Now she's married. She lives in, she lives in Nevada.

Mm-hm.

She married a fellow from Las Vegas.

Grandfather?

Not yet, no not yet. I wish I was. It's about time, I'm seventy-three already.

Hm.

I don't know if I ever will be a grandfather. Now it's--time is nearing to the end.

What are your plans and hopes for the future, and your children's future--and your child's future, I should say.

Well, for me, I don't hope anymore nothing. Because I'm getting--I'm advanced in my age. But for my daughter I, I hope that, that she will at least give me a son or a daughter--a grandchild. That's the only joy I would have in life.


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