Zuzana M. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Zuzana M., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovkia in 1929, the younger of two children. She recalls not knowing she was Jewish; her father's suicide in 1931; celebrating Christian holidays; her mother having them convert to Catholicism; attending a Catholic school; having to move to Nové Mesto nad Váhom due to anti-Jewish restrictions; relatives in Hungary arranging to have them smuggled there in spring 1942; being caught; her brother's deportation to Žilina (she never saw him again); returning to Bratislava with her mother; living apart for safety; her mother's deportation (she never saw her again); hiding briefly with friends in a forest cabin; returning to Bratislava; obtaining her mother's pension and joining a convent with assistance from non-Jews; living in the convent until 1944; embracing Catholicism; living with a family in Beluša who were German collaborators; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to Bratislava; supporting the communist regime; marriage; the births of two children; revealing she was born Jewish when her daughter expressed antisemitism she learned in school; and sharing her story with her children and grandchildren when they were twelve, the age when she was left alone. Ms. M. notes previously self-identifying first as a Slovak, not as a Jew, but now feeling ashamed to be a Slovak.

1 videocassette