Vlček B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Vlček B., who was born in Veľké Kapušany, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1923, one of six children. He recalls a large and close extended family; their orthodoxy; attending yeshiva in Uz︠h︡horod for two years; cordial relations with non-Jews prior to Hungarian occupation; moving with a brother to Budapest in 1942; returning home in 1944; draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; factory work in Szentgotthárd; burying Jews who had been killed; assistance from French and Italian prisoners of war; transfer to Feldbach; assistance from Russian workers and a Czech SS officer; escaping with a group; liberation by Soviet troops; returning home; reunion with his mother, the sole survivor of his immediate family; repossessing their home with assistance from a cousin in the Soviet military; volunteering for the Czech military; antisemitic harassment; and not emigrating in order to remain with his mother. Mr. B. discusses camaraderie among the slave workers; attributing his survival to luck; visits to Auschwitz; finding his uncle's suitcase on exhibit there; dedicating a room in their home to his siblings; and caring for his mother until her death in 1988.

1 videocassette