Tomaš S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Tomaš S., who was born in Košice, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1927, the younger of two children. He recounts his family's assimilated lifestyle; attending a Slovak school; Hungarian occupation; transfer to a Hungarian school; loss of his father's factory; his bar mitzvah; German invasion in March 1944; their exemption from deportation due to his father's World War I service and false claim to a particular medal; his father and sister bringing soup to those rounded-up for deportation; visiting Streda nad Bodrogom and Budapest with his family; apprenticing in a photo shop where he was arrested; finding his cell unlocked and simply walking away; a non-Jewish neighbor hiding him briefly, then bringing him to another man who was hiding six others, all non-Jews; liberation by the Soviets in January 1945; returning to his apartment; and reunion with his father and sister in Budapest (his mother never returned). Mr. S. attributes his survival to many who helped him or did not betray him, luck, and intuition.

1 videocassette