Alexander B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Alexander B., who was born in Topol̕čany, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1919, one of ten children. He recalls his family's poverty; their secularism but observing Jewish holidays; the family's communist leanings; attending selective schools in Nitra and Prievidza, the only high school graduate in his family; draft into a labor brigade of the Slovak military in 1940; deportation with his family to Nováky in June 1942; slave labor in a quarry; his sister arranging his exemption from deportation through her influential dressmaking position; prisoners organizing schools and cultural activities; becoming a teacher; forming an underground group; obtaining weapons with collusion of the chief guard; organizing an uprising and an escape to join the Slovak uprising; heavy fighting in several areas; forming a group of thirty Jewish partisans as part of another group led by a Soviet officer; establishing headquarters in Skýcov; evacuation; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Košice, then home, learning only his father and one sister had survived; moving to Bratislava; working as a journalist; and losing his job due to antisemitism. Mr. B. discusses his belief in communism and his later disillusionment. He shows photographs and reads letters to him from his students in Nováky, most of whom did not survive.

1 videocassette