Ferdinand H. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Ferdinand H., who was born in Alba Iulia, Romania in 1907 and moved to Košice in 1911, one of four sons. He recalls his mother's death in 1914; his father working as a third generation cantor; attending synagogue with his father; attending music conservatories in Prague and Vienna; singing in traveling choirs; serving in the Czech military; discharge; Hungarian occupation; returning home; draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; returning home several times; placing his youngest brother on an illegal children's transport from Budapest to Palestine; his father's death; kind treatment from Serbs while stationed in Bor; transfer to Sachsenhausen and Oranienburg; slave labor in a munitions factory; liberation; traveling home; brief arrest in Plzeň when mistaken for a German; learning his two brothers in forced labor had perished; difficulties "returning to life"; illness which prevented his intended emigration; marriage; and his work in the theater. Mr. H. recounts many details of his childhood, forced labor, and camp life; assistance from other prisoners; physical maladies resulting from his experiences; and living with constant terror during the war, expecting each moment to be his last.

1 videocassette