J. N. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4120)

Videotape testimony of J. N., who was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1938, the younger of two children. He recounts moving to Bratislava in 1941; his family's assimilated lifestyle; his father's exemption from deportation due to his training as a chemist; his work with explosives and deactivating bombs and mines; his parents obtaining false documents with Christian names from an evangelical priest in 1943; cancellation of his father's exemption; a non-Jew whom his father's brother had helped, hiding both families (a total of seven) in the countryside; their rescuer visiting once a week; difficulty obtaining food; liberation after about a year; brief difficulties walking and health problems; his mother learning her entire family had been killed; retaining their Christian names and identities; returning to school; rarely discussing their Judaism for forty years, and never with others; and his children learning a bit about his past from his mother. Mr. N. discusses his somewhat schizophrenic identity; private acknowledgement of his Judaism through food and humor, but never public acknowledgement; and his sister never revealing her true identity to her children.