MIRKA MORA*

Biography

Mirka Mora was born on March 18, 1928 in Paris, France. She was born to two Jewish parents, her father from Lithuania and her mother from Romania. She was raised by her parents, as well as a Catholic ‘mother’ named Paulette who provided financially for Mirka in ways her parents could not. At the age of 14, she was arrested in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup and detained in the Pithiviers internment camp. Although many in the camp were eventually deported to Auschwitz, Mirka was freed alongside 17 other Jews, including her mother and two sisters, likely due to her father’s connections to the French Resistance.

Once the family was reunited in Paris, they went into hiding in the forests of Normandy, where they remained until the city was liberated. In 1945, she met her future-husband Georges Mora and by 1947 they had wed. Fearing outbreak of war in Europe once again because of tensions between the West and the Soviet Union, Mirka and Georges moved to Melbourne. There, she became an acclaimed painter and lived with her husband and son Phillipe for the remainder of her life. She died on August 27, 2018.

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Summary of Testimony

Mirka’s parents came to France from Eastern Europe in search of a better life. They originally wanted to go to America, but they met each other while travelling through Paris and settled there instead. Mirka was raised by her parents, who were relatively poor, and by her Catholic ‘mother’, a wealthy woman named Paulette who didn’t have any children of her own. She credits her parents with being very generous and allowing Paulette to mother her as well, but it was a mutually beneficial relationship, because Paulette’s relative wealth gave Mirka opportunities she wouldn’t otherwise have had. 

She went to synagogue some as a young child, but the war prevented her from engaging in any serious study. As antisemitism rose across Europe, she was exposed to it early; she recalls a trip to the market during which her mother tried to by a pair of shoes and had them stolen because she was Jewish. After the Germans invaded and passed laws restricting the freedoms of Jews, Mirka had to wear a star on her coat – her mother decorated it with lace to make it more appealing. 

One day, on Mirka’s birthday, her mother carefully dressed all the children up and affixed their stars, but forgot her own. On the walk home, Mirka and her mother fearfully separated and walked home on opposite sides of the street, lest her mother be discovered and face arrest and further persecution. On July 16, Mirka, along with her mother and two sisters, was arrested in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup and held before being sent to the Pithiviers internment camp. She was familiar with the concept of concentration camps in general already, because she had an aunt who had been sent to Darcy. 

She recalled seeing only French policemen and no German soldiers during the roundup. Particularly, one French police officer who was relatively sympathetic to her family’s plight gave them three warnings of what time he’d come by the house. Instead of fleeing outright, the family decided to hide Mirka’s father, while the rest of them were arrested.

In Pithiviers, young Mirka prayed to the Virgin Mary for assistance, a habit she developed from her time with her Catholic ‘mother’ Paulette. As an adult, Mirka was unable to explain exactly how she was freed from the camp, and attributes her freedom to her father and his connections. Mirka, her mother, and her two sisters were freed alongside 14 other Jews. As the train pulled away from Pithiviers, Mirka felt, for the first time, guilt, somehow understanding that she was being spared from a horrible fate. “I had never felt guilt before,” Mirka said.

The family immediately returned to their apartment in Paris. Her mother, realizing that their family was in great danger, immediately went to the hospital to pick up her recently born baby cousin. A French civilian recognized that the family was in distress and came to their aid, hiding the family in the countryside of Normandy. In her hidden life in the countryside, Mirka went by the alias of Madeline. In the countryside, Mirka enjoyed sketching graveyards and gazing up at the sky. As a child, she asked herself, “How could there be a war with such a beautiful sky?”

After the liberation of Paris, the family returned to their family, only to find it completely empty, as their concierge had stolen all of their belongings. Mirka opened up to check the cabinets, only to find a litter of baby mice; she described the new lives as the most hopeful image she had ever seen.

A social worker asked Mirka if she would like to return to school, but she refused, claiming that she had seen too much to be able to return. Her mother, disappointed at this decision, took her to a doctor, where she was given electric shock treatments. After this traumatic event, Mirka took on a position taking care of Jewish orphans in Brittany. After Paris was liberated, Mirka left for the UK, where she worked with orphans and concentration camp survivors. She says that this was the first time she met people with numbers tattooed on their arms from the camps in the East. 

Although her parents were in Paris, Mirka didn’t want to live with them, desiring instead to begin life on her own despite being only 17 years old. When she eventually returned to Paris, she met Georges Mora – within two years they had married. During the war Georges had worked with Marcel Marceau, the famous mime, in the Resistance. Mirka admired Marcel, and saved up money to study at his school. When she ran short on tuition money, Georges covered the rest of the bill.

As the Cold War started to ramp up and tensions grew, Mirka became scared that Europe was headed for another war. Even though Georges wanted to stay in Paris, they left for Melbourne, a city she had dreamed of since she was young, because she’d read a novel set there. Although she didn’t speak more than a few phrases of English, they moved to Melbourne and started a new life there.

Created by Samantha Friskey and Samuel Mitchell.