Ladislav W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4129)

Videotape testimony of Vladislav W., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1918, the youngest of three children in an assimilated family. He recounts living in Nové Mesto nad Váhom; attending a Jewish school; his father's and uncles' manufacturing business; his oldest sister's disability due to polio; his other sister's marriage and move to Prague; living with her to attend high school; his father's death; returning to assist his uncles in the business; wanting to emigrate but not doing so in order to help his mother and sister; expulsion from his hockey team by Hlinka guards; non-Jewish friends boycotting the team in his support; confiscation of the family factory, but continuing to manage it which resulted in his exemption from deportation; a non-Jewish friend warning him when it was not safe; leaving with a friend during the Slovak uprising in August 1944, in order to escape deportation; hiding in the woods during the day and with non-Jews at night; his mother and sister joining them; finding a hiding place in the forest; joining a group of Soviet and Slovak soldiers in November to form a partisan unit; attacking a German convoy; moving to the mountains then Staré Hory; attacking many German convoys; crossing the mountains to Poprad; enlistment in the Czech military; returning home in July 1945; reunion with his mother and sister; return of the family business; marriage in 1946; and confiscation of the business by the Communists in 1948. Mr. W. recalls many relatives who were killed in the Holocaust and credits his survival to the non-Jews who helped him.