Rita R. Schorr, class of 1953
Rita R. Schorr was born on April 16, 1934 to a prominent Jewish family in Boryslav, Poland, currently the Ukraine. With the outbreak of World War II, her family experienced the Soviet Occupation and, with the 1941 implementation of the "Final Solution," the German concentration camps. Liberated from Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, Schorr was forced to rebuild her life without her family.
Rita R. Schorr begins this interview by recounting her childhood in Poland, the outbreak of World War II, and her and her family’s placement in Auschwitz. She explains the trauma of this experience, as well as her determination to survive. Schorr transitions to discuss her education in Munich after she was liberated, and her later move to the United States. She describes the gratitude she feels toward the Pembrokers who fundraised on her behalf, as well as the support she received from friends, professors, and members of the Brown University and Providence Jewish community. She details her graduate experience at Radcliffe and the supportive figures she met while she was there. Schorr concludes the interview by describing her academic career, marriage, her children, her bat mitzvah, and her approach to the world today.
Pikesville, Maryland