Title
Zoltan L. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3656) [videorecording] / interviewed by Peter Salner and Eva Riecanská, February 8, 1995.
Summary
Videotape testimony of Zoltan L., who was born in Liptovský Mikuláš, Czechoslovakia in 1927. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; his mother's singing talent; attending a Jewish school, then gymnasium; his mother singing at Jewish and non-Jewish weddings; he and his brother learning songs from her; anti-Jewish measures, including expulsion from gymnasium, following Slovak independence; attending a Jewish gymnasium; his father attacking a man who painted antisemitic slogans on his bakery; their arrest by Hlinka guard and transport to Košice; returning home; his bar mitzvah; his father's deportation (he never saw him again); joining the unsuccessful Slovak uprising in August 1944; being hidden with his mother by non-Jews in Kvačany; their arrest in December; imprisonment in Liptovský Mikuláš, then Ružomberok; transport with his aunt and mother to Sered; slave labor; separation from his family when he was selected for transfer to Sachsenhausen by Kommandant Alois Brunner; privileged treatment resulting from singing for camp officials; a death march in April 1945; abandonment by the guards in Schwerin; liberation by United States troops; contact with his brother through the Red Cross; returning home via Lübeck and Plzeň; reunion with his brother; neighbors returning their belongings; conservatory training; and his singing career. Mr. L. notes learning his mother and aunt perished in Ravensbrück, and performing and recording Jewish songs.