Chava S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3965) interviewed by Peter Salner and Ingrid Antalová

Videotape testimony of Chava S., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovkia (presently Slovakia) in 1936, the younger of two children. She recalls increasing antisemitism in 1938; hiding during a round-up immediately after her brother's bar mitzvah in 1942; her father arranging their conversion to Greek-Orthodoxy in 1943; hiding in the suburban house of the non-Jew who had taken over their business; round-up in October 1944; deportation with her family and other relatives to Sered; transfer in November with her mother, aunt, two cousins, and grandmother to Bergen-Belsen; starvation, lice, and piles of corpses all over; liberation by British troops in April 1945; recovering from typhus; repatriation to Prague; learning her brother had returned to Bratislava; joining him; recovering their apartment and furniture; she and her brother joining a Zionist youth group; her mother's brother in Israel urging them to join him; emigrating to Israel in March 1949; her mother joining her later that month and her brother in December; marriage to a survivor; and the births of two daughters. Ms. S. discusses nightmares resulting from her experiences; not discussing their experiences to protect her mother from painful memories; placing a memorial plaque in Buchenwald for her father; and sharing her experiences with her daughters.