It was a dangerous time to be Jewish.
Her family escaped to New York, by way of the Caribbean, midway through World War II. Her earliest memories take place at a holding camp in the Caribbean, where her family stayed for more than a month during their journey to the United States.
"You bathed in the ocean and went to the toilet in the ocean," she said. Her family was one of about 250 that had traveled in the hold of a cargo ship across the Atlantic.
Her parents all but buried their Judaism in the United States.
"It was under the table, and if possible, it was under the floor," Bolliger said. Her father was an atheist, her mother an agnostic. They celebrated Christmas and observed no Jewish holidays.
Bolliger embraced aspects of Jewish life as an adult. She`s attended an annual Seder dinner for 20 years and lights a menorah in her home during Hanukkah. Most years, she attends a conference for child survivors of the Holocaust.
"I know - we all know - that we`re not supposed to be here," she said. "We`re supposed to be dead."
Each spring Jews around the world gather in their respective communities to read the names of those who weren`t so fortunate. The day is called Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, and this year it began the evening of April 15. Though the holiday commemorates the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust, the Nazis also targeted gypsies, Christian Slavs, dissenters and people with disabilities, among others.
Bolliger gathered with a handful of other Jews at Pioneer Courthouse Square Thursday morning to take part in the reading. The local event was organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland and the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.
With help from a younger, more steady-handed rabbi, the 77-year-old lit six candles to kick off the ceremony. Three vases of yellow tulips decorated the table. Yellow, like the stars Jews living under Nazi rule pinned to their clothes during the war.
In Portland, each Yom HaShoah participant reads the names, ages and death locations of Holocaust victims for 10 minutes. Most get through about 110 names.
Every community that participates has a different list. The Portland group was responsible for more than 5,000 names, which took about eight hours to read. In all, roughly six million Jews died in the Holocaust.
Bolliger went first. She adjusted the microphone and began:
"Bentzion Abramovicz, 46, Auschwitz."
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