Otto S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3930) interviewed by Peter Salner

Videotape testimony of Otto S., who was born in Topol̕čany, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1924, one of two brothers. He recounts his father's career as a judge; moving to Nové Zámky, then Nitra due to his father's transfers; attending a Jewish school from 1930-1934, then a secular school; cordial relations with non-Jews; anti-Jewish discrimination beginning with Slovak independence; harassment by non-Jewish students; his teacher's dismissal for defending the Jewish students; joining Hashomer Hatzair and Maccabi; living on a hachsharah between 1940 and 1941; returning home; his father's arrest; arrest with his mother and brother months later; incarceration in Žilina, where his father joined them; his uncle obtaining false papers showing they had converted to Christianity before 1938, resulting in their transfer to Vhyne; their release in August 1943 and the family receiving an exemption from deportation due to his father's connections; working as a bookbinder in Liptovský Mikuláš; joining the partisans after the Slovak uprising; killing a German officer; returning to Nitra; reunion with his grandmother and parents; learning his beloved brother had been killed; completing law school; working in a factory based on his socialist commitment; becoming a journalist for socialist publications; expulsion from the party in 1967; working as an attorney; and returning to journalism in 1989. Mr. S. notes the loss of his brother ruining his life.