Ernest R. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Ernest R., who was born in Nitra, Czechoslovakia in 1935. He recalls attending Jewish school until 1941; takeover of his father's business; wearing the yellow star in 1942; being smuggled to Koma?rno, Hungary because it was safer in Hungary than Slovakia; hiding with his younger sister at his grandparent's house; joining his parents in Mako?; and hearing that his maternal grandparents had been deported from Nitra. Mr. R. describes attending a Jewish school; his father's service in a Hungarian forced labor battalion; business restrictions and food shortages imposed on the Jews; ghettoization in 1944; transport with his mother and sister to Szeged, then Strasshof; farm work on a nearby estate; food received from Germans; and transport in the fall to Vienna, then Bergen-Belsen. He details appells, brutal Ukrainian kapos, bitter cold, and being surrounded by corpses; his mother's efforts to wash him and his sister; transport in April 1945 from Bergen-Belsen; liberation by American troops from the train; many deaths from typhus and overeating; returning to Nitra in July; and reunion with his father. Mr. R. discusses his amazement that his family survived; lasting emotional effects of the experience; and fear that it could recur.

2 videocassettes (3/4" u-matic)