Mary Olga Poliszczuk, a retired Baltimore City College languages teacher and Holocaust survivor liberated from Dachau, died of dementia complications May 4 at Lorien Encore in Ellicott City. She was 85.

Born in Bazar, Ukraine, she was the daughter of Olexa Sidlak, a cabinetmaker, and his wife, Michaelyna. As the German army was retreating during World War II, she and her parents were captured and forced into labor at the Dachau Concentration Camp in southern Germany.

She was five years old when the U.S. Army liberated the camp. She and her parents were transferred to a displaced persons’ camp in Mittenwald, Germany, while arrangements were made to locate a family to sponsor them in the U.S.

They sailed to New York aboard an Army troop ship and settled in Bel Air. They later moved to Baltimore, where she attended Saint Casimir’s School in Canton and the Catholic High School of Baltimore. She graduated from Notre Dame of Maryland in 1962 with a degree in German. In 1979, she earned a master’s degree in special education from Loyola University of Maryland.

“My wife had a life that was rich in academic achievement,” said her husband, Orest Poliszczuk. “She was extraordinarily resilient. She had perseverance, an adventurous spirit and a ceaseless thirst for knowledge.”

“She was a social butterfly. She loved to talk to people and staged all kinds of events at the house. She loved parties and dances. She was a tremendous dancer. I had two left feet and she taught me. She was extremely outgoing,” he said.

She joined Baltimore City Schools and taught at Rock Glen Junior High School, Southern High School and Baltimore City College, where she retired in 2001. She taught German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Latin.

Her husband said she was an adventurous traveler and chaperoned students on tours of Europe. She recruited students from her school and her husband found students from his. They formed a unified party and traveled throughout England, Italy, and Greece, and other destinations by bus.

She and her family lived in Catonsville and Columbia before settling in Ellicott City.

Mrs. Poliszczuk was an accomplished cook who prepared traditional European dishes. She read two books weekly and taught languages at a Ukrainian school on Saturdays.

Survivors include her husband of 61 years, Orest Poliszczuk, who taught sculpture at Montgomery College; a daughter, Lisa Lander, of Ellicott City; a sister, Elizabeth Iwaszko, of St. Augustine, Florida; and a brother, Michael Sidlak, also of St. Augustine.

A funeral service was held Wednesday at St. Michael Ukrainian Catholic Church.

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