diff --git a/Lib/test/test_unicode.py b/Lib/test/test_unicode.py
index 1429a6d5458..56a60df0077 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_unicode.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_unicode.py
@@ -849,7 +849,15 @@ class UnicodeTest(string_tests.CommonTest,
     @support.cpython_only
     def test_case_operation_overflow(self):
         # Issue #22643
-        self.assertRaises(OverflowError, ("ü"*(2**32//12 + 1)).upper)
+        size = 2**32//12 + 1
+        try:
+            s = "ü" * size
+        except MemoryError:
+            self.skipTest('no enough memory (%.0f MiB required)' % (size / 2**20))
+        try:
+            self.assertRaises(OverflowError, s.upper)
+        finally:
+            del s
 
     def test_contains(self):
         # Testing Unicode contains method