Akiva N. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Akiva N., who was born in Polhora, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1922, the older of two children. He recounts his family moving to Turany when he was three; attending a Catholic school for three years; moving to Žilina; attending a Jewish school; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; cordial relations with non-Jews; completing high school; working for Hashomer in Piešt̕any and Trenčin; expulsion of Jews from schools; starting a Jewish school; moving to Banská Bystrica in 1942 to teach and lead Hashomer; arranging to be smuggled to Hungary to avoid deportation; obtaining false papers in Bratislava; visiting his parents and sister to say goodbye; traveling to Budapest; assistance from Hashomer; moving monthly to avoid detection; meeting a Jew who had escaped from a mass killing in Ukraine; arrest after four months; deportation to Sered; Hashomer friends arranging a privileged job so he was not deported; participating in the underground; obtaining weapons; escaping to Nitra to obtain materials to make false papers, then returning; escaping during the Slovak uprising in summer 1944; learning his parents had been deported and killed; joining the partisans in Zemianske Kostoľany; encounters with Germans in Oslany and other locations; bombing of his unit, resulting in high casualites; finding Jews hiding in bunkers; arranging for local villagers to hide them; arrest in Bratislava; escape; hiding in a Hashomer bunker; liberation by Soviet troops; living with an uncle in Revúca; organizing Hashomer; illegal emigration with his wife to Palestine in 1947; living on kibbutzim; and the births of three children. Mr. N. discusses the privileged position of Hashomer members in Sered; social activities there; and non-Jews saving his uncle and grandfather.

1 videocassette