Toman B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Toman B., who was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1929. A distinguished Czech historian, Mr. B. speaks of his childhood in a well-to-do, assimilated family; his strong Czech patriotism; collecting money in school for national defense; his father's death on the eve of the Munich agreement; previously hidden antisemitism; humiliation at having to wear a star; and help from a Christian ex-servant when the family home was commandeered by Germans. He relates deportation with his mother and brother to Theresienstadt in July 1942; organization and sociocultural life in the children's block; his mother's mastectomy; transport to Auschwitz in late 1943; liquidation of the family camp; his brother's selection for labor (he never saw him again); the killing of his mother in May 1944; witnessing women and children on line at the gas chambers; and transport to Gross Rosen in October 1944. He discusses near starvation; liberation; returning to Prague; hospitalization for tuberculosis; his postwar career as a historian; suffering official disfavor after the 1968 Soviet intervention; the communist government's collapse in 1989; and relations with his daughter.

4 videocassettes (3/4" u-matic)