Ladislav W. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Vladislav W., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1918, the youngest of three children in an assimilated family. He recounts living in Nové Mesto nad Váhom; attending a Jewish school; his father's and uncles' manufacturing business; his oldest sister's disability due to polio; his other sister's marriage and move to Prague; living with her to attend high school; his father's death; returning to assist his uncles in the business; wanting to emigrate but not doing so in order to help his mother and sister; expulsion from his hockey team by Hlinka guards; non-Jewish friends boycotting the team in his support; confiscation of the family factory, but continuing to manage it which resulted in his exemption from deportation; a non-Jewish friend warning him when it was not safe; leaving with a friend during the Slovak uprising in August 1944, in order to escape deportation; hiding in the woods during the day and with non-Jews at night; his mother and sister joining them; finding a hiding place in the forest; joining a group of Soviet and Slovak soldiers in November to form a partisan unit; attacking a German convoy; moving to the mountains then Staré Hory; attacking many German convoys; crossing the mountains to Poprad; enlistment in the Czech military; returning home in July 1945; reunion with his mother and sister; return of the family business; marriage in 1946; and confiscation of the business by the Communists in 1948. Mr. W. recalls many relatives who were killed in the Holocaust and credits his survival to the non-Jews who helped him.

1 videocassette