Zuzana M. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3891) interviewed by interviewed by Martin Bútora and Zora Bútorová,,

Videotape testimony of Zuzana M., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovkia in 1929, the younger of two children. She recalls not knowing she was Jewish; her father's suicide in 1931; celebrating Christian holidays; her mother having them convert to Catholicism; attending a Catholic school; having to move to Nové Mesto nad Váhom due to anti-Jewish restrictions; relatives in Hungary arranging to have them smuggled there in spring 1942; being caught; her brother's deportation to Žilina (she never saw him again); returning to Bratislava with her mother; living apart for safety; her mother's deportation (she never saw her again); hiding briefly with friends in a forest cabin; returning to Bratislava; obtaining her mother's pension and joining a convent with assistance from non-Jews; living in the convent until 1944; embracing Catholicism; living with a family in Beluša who were German collaborators; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to Bratislava; supporting the communist regime; marriage; the births of two children; revealing she was born Jewish when her daughter expressed antisemitism she learned in school; and sharing her story with her children and grandchildren when they were twelve, the age when she was left alone. Ms. M. notes previously self-identifying first as a Slovak, not as a Jew, but now feeling ashamed to be a Slovak.