Viera B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Viera B., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1935. She recounts growing up in Trenčianské Teplice, where her father was a physician in a spa; her brother's birth in March 1939, the same day as Slovak independence; anti-Jewish laws including a prohibition on her father practicing medicine and confiscation of their apartment; converting to Christianity, hoping to save themselves; her father's deportation (she never saw him again); her mother's hospitalization, then deportation in October 1942 (she did not return); living with her grandmother and uncle in Trenčin; attending a Protestant school; her grandmother's deportation to Novaky; living with her uncle and his wife; moving so no one would know they were Jews; her grandmother's release for a visit (she remained free in hiding); and, after the war, living with her grandmother, whose love assisted her and her brother adjust to the loss of their parents. Ms. B. notes sharing her story with her husband, son, relatives, and colleagues; her trauma imagining how her parents must have felt being forced to leave their young children; and a 1956 visit to Auschwitz. She shows photographs.

1 videocassette