Jan S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3688) [videorecording] / interviewed by Peter Salner and Ingrid Antalová, June 29, 1995.

Bratislava, Slovakia : Milan Šimečka Foundation, 1995.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 9 min.) : col.

Slovak

This testimony is in Slovak.

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.

June 01, 2002

Jan S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3688 Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Jan S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3688 Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)