Pavel E. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Pavel E., who was born in Opava, then the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, in 1911. He recounts his affluent, assimilated parents; registering to study law in Prague in 1930; theater study in Vienna; working in theaters and studying law; compulsory military service; working as a lawyer in Prague in 1937; German occupation; being fired due to anti-Jewish laws; marriage in March 1939; planning to emigrate, but staying due to family pressure; deportation with his wife to the Łódź ghetto in October 1941 (he never saw his parents again); a privileged position as a streetcar driver; sharing extra food with his wife; shootings during mass round-ups in spring 1942; clandestinely listening to radio broadcasts; learning of the Warsaw ghetto uprising; the ghetto's liquidation in August 1944; delivering people and valuables to the train station; saving his wife from deportation with assistance from an SS officer; hiding in bunkers in January 1945; liberation by Soviet troops; obtaining Czech passports in Warsaw in May; their journey to Ostrava; and return to Prague with assistance from the Red Cross and Jewish organizations. Mr. E. notes details of ghetto life and that all their relatives perished in concentration camps. He shows photographs.

2 videocassettes