Jan S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Jan S., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1923, one of two children. He recounts his parents' assimilated lifestyle; his bar mitzvah to please his grandfather; participating with his sister in an anti-fascist youth group; moving with his family to Piešt̕any in 1938; joining the resistance; printing pamphlets and operating an illegal transmitter for the underground; arrest and imprisonment; solitary confinement for one year; transfer to Nováky; assignment to a privileged position as an electrician; joining the underground; obtaining a radio and weapons; convincing guards to join the partisans; a revolt in Nováky; escaping with others; joining the Slovak uprising; fighting in Handlová, Zemianske Kostoľany, Partizánske, Banská Bystrica and other places; being wounded twice; translating for British soldiers; a physician sending him to officer school in Poprad (he was too ill to fight); learning his mother and sister had survived in hiding and his father had been killed; working as a journalist; dismissal in 1952 for criticizing the regime and being Jewish; rehabilitation; and working for Alexander Dubček. Mr. S. notes the deportations and deaths of almost all his large, extended family.

2 videocassettes