Josef B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Josef B., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1929. He recounts his family's affluence; his parents' emphasis on education; confiscation of their property and expulsion from school due to anti-Jewish laws; he and his family's conversion to Reformed Evangelicism due to the kindness of the pastor, despite objections from his orthodox grandparents; moving to Liptovský Mikuláš; leaving his family to work in the Bata shoe factory in Partizánske using false papers; escaping when exposure was imminent due to the Slovak uprising; traveling from Topol̕čany to Bratislava; working for Bata there; his father's arrival on the day of liberation in April 1945; passing his high school equivalency test; completing university studies as a chemist; and not being allowed to leave the country, despite his prominence as a scientist, since the communist regime considered him unreliable. Mr. B. notes his parents and brother were hidden in Bratislava by a family friend; learning of the death camps only after liberation; attributing his survival to luck and youthful naivety; and raising his own children with a focus on education. He shows his and his brother's false documents.

1 videocassette