Juraj B. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4206)

Videotape testimony of Juraj B., a Catholic Romani, who was born in Sásová, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1920. He recalls extreme poverty in his childhood; harassment against Romanies; observing arrest of Jews; military draft in 1940; assignments in Trnava, Rimavská Sobota, and near the Polish border; the Germans confiscating their rifles and impressing them into forced labor; particularly harsh treatment by the Hlinka guard; having to wear different uniforms; being sent to work for private farmers where they received better food; inadequate clothing for the harsh winters; escaping with about twenty others; joining the Polish partisans in Sanok; crossing to Slovakia with his unit; fighting Germans in Vyšný Komárnik; liberation in Zvolenská Slatina; disinterring bodies from a mass grave in Kremnicka; recognizing his sister, her husband, and others from Sásová, reburying them and construction of a memorial; working in construction; and attending evening school, then political school in Bratislava.