- Summary
- Videotape testimony of György K., a prize-winning author, who was born in Debrecen, Hungary in 1933, the second of two children. He describes his sheltered, pleasant childhood in an affluent home in Berettyóújfalu; his large extended family; celebrating Jewish holidays; large family gatherings at his home and in Oradea; not attending school until age ten when he first encountered Christian children; deportation of Jewish men for forced labor; German invasion in 1944; anti-Jewish restrictions, including confiscation of the family business and valuables and wearing the star; his parents' arrests on May 15; visiting them once; their deportation, in error, to Austria (they were supposed to have been sent to Auschwitz): his mother's sister inviting him and his sister to join them in Budapest; his father's non-Jewish friends arranging the trip for him and his sister; arrival at their aunt's home on June 6; hiding in his uncle's factory in October; his aunt obtaining Swiss documents in November; moving to a safe house; Arrow Cross (Nyilas) removing Jews; learning they were shooting them into the Danube; an Arrow Cross shooting an elderly man in their house, then holding a gun to Mr. K.'s head, but not shooting him; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to Berettyóújfalu a month later; learning the Jews who had remained had been killed in Auschwitz; living with a cousin in Oradea for a month; his parents' return; completing his education; his political activities, some leading to arrests; his marriages; the births of his children; and other details of his personal life. Mr. K. discusses his novels; always including a version of himself and his experiences in them; brief arrest for the book written with Ivan Szelenyi; beginning to write about his childhood when he was in his fifties; banning of his work in Hungary; living in Germany, France and elsewhere; his presidency of International PEN; his fame providing protection in Hungary; and his identity both as a Hungarian and a Jew.
- Author/Creator
- K., György, 1933-
- Published
- Israel : Words & Images, 1995
- Interview Date
- September 18, 1995.
- Locale
- Hungary
Debrecen (Hungary)
Berettyóújfalu (Hungary)
Oradea (Romania)
Budapest (Hungary)
- Cite As
- György K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4091). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Popper, Péter, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hungarian.
Related publication: The case worker / György Konrád; translated by Paul Aston. -- New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, c1974.
Related publication: The intellectuals on the road to class power / George Konrád, Ivan Szelenyi ; translated by Andrew Arato and Richard E. Allen. -- New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, c1979.
Related publication: A feast in the garden / George Konrád ; translated from the Hungarian by Imre Goldstein. -- New York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.
Due to the fact that this testimony contains significant dialogue between the witness and the interviewer, two versions were produced at the time of the taping. One version has the camera focused solely on the witness; the second has two cameras alternating between the witness and the interviewer.
