When I was in my early 30s I went back to France to visit with a friend of my adoptive parents in Grasse. We were reminiscing

The silence of the children as we know now is in no way due to indifference. It reflected adults' prohibitions. It reflected children's fears, confusions.

about the awful events of the war and the years right after the liberation when suddenly she said, "You never looked upset at the time. You didn't seem to miss your mother; you never talked about her. I guess children don't have feelings. You were lucky, you didn't understand."

The author, age 7 France, 1944

Well, the poor woman didn't know what hit her as I screamed back, "How can you make such a statement? You have no clue as to what I felt after being whisked from one home to another for two years, after being converted in a convent during one stay. What did you expect of me, to be a nice, open, expressive child?"

After my tirade which seemed to last for hours, she felt terrible, apologized profusely, and said that obviously adults don't understand children.

On her behalf, I should add that I wanted nothing better than to be like everyone else ­ to continue to "pass." So I played like the other kids, wanted to be dressed like them, to be the best in school, and mostly to be Catholic as they all were. By then I had been converted to Protestantism by my new adoptive family.

How could I talk about the war and yet be like everyone else? Vaguely knowing that I was Jewish, I felt, in fact, secretly ashamed of my dubious origins. And how could I feel for my mother when I was now adopted by an older woman who had wanted a child for so many years. No matter which way I turned, I was betraying someone. So why bother to think about it at all? And how could I even think of complaining after she and all her nice friends always reminded me that I should be grateful for having been saved and taken in by such a nice family? Thinking about it now, it seems like a Greek chorus.

The older woman had arranged a beautiful room for me, provided a doll and dresses, a new hairdo. I heard stories about her past, her childhood; she and her Swedish husband took me to Switzerland for my health right after the war. She listened to my heartaches and triumphs in school. She told me to call her aunt, and then to call her Moure ­ mother in Swedish.

Did I feel they wanted to talk about the war and my mother? Yes, we went back to my mother's apartment in Nice: yes, Moure put together an album of my mother's photographs. Yet she fought tooth and nail to keep me when my aunt wanted me back. I reminded her of a child she had loved in India a long time ago, she always said. I ended up feeling I really was her child ­ at least during the day. My mother belonged to another planet, in its own particular world, at night, when I prayed to God for her return.

Years later, when she never returned, I stopped praying and I forgot all about the war. I could no longer conjure up an image of my mother; I forgot about her, I forgot I was a Jew. I became a little French girl. Now I was angry at God but I didn't know why.

The silence of the children as we know now is in no way due to indifference. It reflected adults' prohibitions. It reflected children's fears, confusions. Did they feel they had rights? There was the terror of being thrown out, the sense of guilt, badness, shame for being different ­ whether it made sense or not. That life remained subterranean, sometimes for decades, becoming more shameful as it remained hidden, yet causing one to accumulate more resentment at a world perceived to squash the true, honest self; it made one feel like a second-class citizen, not entitled to want, and maybe often scared to try, anything.

It was in the early '70s when I began to question why I barely remembered anything of my mother, of the time I was in hiding.

The Exodus was really a part of me, it was my story. It made me cry. But it took until the '70s to realize I was missing a part of myself, the me of the war with all its dark feelings buried inside.

In fact, I had forgotten much of my childhood. I felt very disconnected. Continuing to pretend I was French felt more and more like a lie. To have a Christmas tree also became an increasing source of discomfort. After all, I was a Jew even though I could never get myself to say that in French.

The first time I really felt I was a Jew was at my first Seder with my newly found relatives in New York in the early '60s. The Exodus was really a part of me, it was my story. It made me cry. But it took until the '70s to realize I was missing a part of myself, the me of the war with all its dark feelings buried inside. The inevitable sense of my being a Jew was coming from acknowledging the atrocities of the war; how could I explain my life otherwise? Because my mother was a Jew, she had died in Auschwitz. But besides that, what in fact was a Jew? As a way of reconciling my dual heritage, I started to have a Seder on Easter day. I began to feel more authentic. That was the beginning of looking for lost memories, lost connections with my people.

From then on, I researched and came to know the Holocaust as part of my history. But, more importantly, I searched for and found relatives in Israel who filled in the gaps, the memories I had been missing. I recovered more feelings about my mother while learning stories about her childhood from my uncle, her half-brother. No longer was she just a Holocaust victim. I was thrilled to learn she had been happy-go-lucky, creative and spoiled.

The author of this article,  a clinical psychologist practicing in New York City, was born in Italy of Czech parents. Her father died of natural causes just before the war when she was 2 years old. Her mother escaped from Italy to Nice where they lived until 1943. She was placed in a convent just before her mother was denounced, sent to Drancy and then to Auschwitz.