Maida Pollock
Maida Pollock
CREATED BY ADAM LOFTEN & GARY YOST 08:54 mins 2020
“I think that love and protection made me survive in the second world war.” Maida Pollock was 22 years old when she was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Now 97 years old, Maida reflects on how the love from her family was an inoculation against long term harm after witnessing the Holocaust.
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Discussion Guide:
Maida acknowledges that “love and protection” in her childhood and adolescence gave her the resilience she needed to survive after being liberated at the end of the war. Researchers agree that, of all the factors that boost resilience, good parenting is often the most significant. "The thing that makes the biggest difference, over and above one's genetic blueprint, is the relationship a child has with their parents or primary caregivers," says Philip Fisher, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon who studies early childhood interventions to improve the functioning of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. "The presence of supportive, consistent and protective primary caregivers—especially when the underlying stress systems are activated—is the factor that makes the biggest difference in healthy development." How do you think your own upbringing and personal relationships with your parents and immediate family have given you the resilience you may need to adapt to challenging situations?
Maida shares that it was luck more than resilience that led to her survival at the Auschwitz-Berkenau concentration camp. Have you ever been in a situation in which your fate was determined solely by chance?
Thomas Jefferson is known for this quote “‘I’m a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.” And a Roman philosopher is supposed to have said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” These quotes are at odds with a situation in which a person has absolutely zero control. Understanding that there may be situations in which you completely lose the basic human ability to make choices and plan your actions, do you feel that the above quotes are universally applicable or are there special circumstances in which we literally have zero control?
Maida shares that although her father was killed upon arrival to Auschwitz, she managed to stay with her mother the entire time she was in the camp. How do you feel that having a loved one with you in times of tremendous challenge affects your ability to cope with the situation?
Do we have the need to believe that we’re always at least partially in control of our fate, and that we always have some semblance of free will… not just lucky? If your answer is yes, why do you feel that’s true? If your answer is no, what in your experience has brought you to that assessment?
Between May and July of 1944, Maida and at least 437,000 Jews were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp from Hungary. She never returned home. Imagine if your government was responsible for deporting you and hundreds of thousands of people from your region to a concentration camp, knowing that you’d most likely be killed. Could you ever consider that country home again?
Maida and her community had heard rumors about the concentration camps but the stories were too horrible to believe. Why do you think so many chose not to believe that this was really happening?
In the age of social media and 24 hour news do you think it is possible today for a government to control the story and secrecy like the Nazi’s did?
Maida and many survivors believe it is their duty to share their stories. Since WWII and the Jewish Holocaust many more ethnic cleansings have occurred. Is knowing history enough to stop repeating the same mistakes?
Links to discover more:
USC Shoah Foundation Institute Testimony of Maida Pollock (Requires Visit to Library & Archives or Other Viewing Location)