Peter B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Peter B., who was born in Bushtyna, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1929, the oldest of four children. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; his father's position as a deputy mayor; attending cheder and a Czech school; anti-Jewish restrictions after Carpatho-Ukrainian independence in 1938, quickly followed by Hungarian occupation; attending school in Oradea; his family's identification with Hungary; his mother hiding his baby sister with a Ukrainian neighbor, who brought her to the police; a policeman returning her to them; hiding in a nearby village for several weeks; Hungarians beating him to find hidden valuables (he revealed nothing); round-up to a synagogue; ghettoization in Ma?te?szalka; deportation by train; the Jewish community of Satu Mare bringing them food when the train stopped there; transitioning to German guards in Kos?ice; arrival at Birkenau; a prisoner telling him to say he was eighteen; and separation with his father from his mother, siblings, and grandparents. Mr. B. details Jewish religious and cultural life before the war.

3 videocassettes