- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Peter B., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1928. He recounts his mother's foresight in not having him circumcised, which later saved his life; pervasive antisemitism; his parents' frequent discussions of wanting to escape (one uncle and his family did); anti-Jewish restrictions; his family's conversion to Catholicism in 1939 to protect themselves; attending Catholic education classes (his "soul was executed in the process"), then a Catholic school; feeling persecuted for no reason since he never experienced Jewish cultural or religious life and did not feel like a Jew; the concentration of Jews leading his parents to decide to assume new identities; working in a factory using false papers; not knowing where his parents were; a draft notice from the Hungarian military; learning his parents were in hiding; joining them; the non-Jewish building superintendent providing food and water, and warning them of Nazi raids; and liberation. Mr. B. discusses the deaths of almost all his relatives during the war; suppressing his feelings and not identifying as a Jew for years due to fear and shame; finding hundreds of documents of family history in Hungary when his father died at age ninety; and continuing Hungarian antisemitism.
- Author/Creator
- B., Peter, 1928-
- Published
- Mahwah, N.J. : Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 1994
- Interview Date
- July 13, 1994.
- Locale
- Budapest (Hungary)
Hungary
- Cite As
- Peter B. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2736). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Hirschfield, Sarah, interviewer.
Barko, Fred, interviewer.
