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Ivan M. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3932) interviewed by Martin Bútora and Zora Bútorová,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-3932

Videotape testimony of Ivan M. who was born in 1912 in Bratislava, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Slovakia). He recounts his family's assimilated lifestyle; his father's career as a physician; becoming a physician in 1936; working as a physician in Podbrezová, then in the health department in Trnava and Levoča; meeting his future wife, a non-Jew, in 1938; moving to Bratislava; conversion to Catholicism in 1942, hoping to avoid deportation; his wife hiding him, and later his parents; marriage in April 1944; his son's birth a week later; and rejoining the health department after the war. Dr. M. recounts his parents' experiences. He discusses his gratitude to many non-Jews who saved him and his family (only one uncle was killed); recognition of his wife by Yad Vashem; his commitment to Marxism; becoming disillusioned with communism; expulsion from the party in 1968; his children's sense of their religious identities, particularly in the antisemitic postwar period; and viewing himself as a Jew despite his conversion. He shows photographs and documents.

Author/Creator
M., Ivan, 1912-
Published
Bratislava, Slovakia : Milan Šimečka Foundation, 1996
Interview Date
April 25, 1996.
Locale
Austria
Bratislava (Slovakia)
Podbrezová (Slovakia)
Trnava (Slovakia)
Levoča (Slovakia)
Language
Slovak
Copies
3 copies: 1/2 in. VHS master; Betacam SP submaster; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Ivan M. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3932). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4470152
Record last modified: 2018-05-30 11:40:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt4470152