Aca S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3510) interviewed by Jaša Almuli

Videotape testimony of Aca S., who was born in Bačka Topola, Yugoslavia in 1923. He recounts his family's affluence; the Jews identifying as Hungarians; membership in Betar; Hungarian occupation in 1941; his father's immediate arrest and deportation; deportation with many Jews to Bečej; release after a few weeks; futile attempts to escape and join the partisans; German occupation in March 1944; incarceration in Bačka Topola concentration camp; his mother's arrival in April; deportation to Auschwitz in May; transfer shortly thereafter to Oberwüstegiersdorf; slave labor in a textile factory; assistance from a fellow prisoner; transfer to Schotterwerk, then Dörnhau; sharing food he “stole” with other prisoners; a Todt supervisor breaking his glasses; a German guard providing new ones; transfer to Flossenbürg in January 1945; registering as a non-Jewish Serbian; remaining when the Jews were transported out in April 1945; a death march beginning April 19; collapsing; a guard not shooting him, thinking he was from his Hungarian town; liberation by United States troops in Stamsried; hospitalization; returning to Bačka Topola; and reunion with his mother. Mr. S. describes relations between prisoner groups in camps; his belief in communism; learning his father and brother had been killed; marriage to a survivor; imprisonment from 1951 to 1953 for criticizing communism; his leadership role in the Jewish community; difficulties due to the break-up of Yugoslavia; his daughter's emigration to Israel; and the future of the Jews in the former Yugoslavia.