Andrew S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4423)

Videotape testimony of Andrew S., who was born in Beli Manastir, Yugoslavia (presently Croatia) in 1929, the eldest of his mother's five children (His father was previously married to his mother's sister with whom he had three children). He recounts moving to Mukacheve before he was two; attending a Czech school and cheder; Hungarian occupation in 1940; his bar mitzvah which he barely remembers; draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion in 1944; transport to Szombathely; encountering a German soldier at a railroad station who gave him a loaf of bread; another German soldier who saved his life; deportation in January 1945 to Schachendorf; slave labor digging trenches; being left behind when the camp was evacuated because he was too ill to walk; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to Mukacheve seeking relatives; encountering one younger brother; traveling to Budapest, then joining a sister-in-law in Liberec; traveling with her to Leipheim displaced persons camp; assistance from UNRRA; emigration with his sister-in-law to the United States in April 1947; attending school; marriage; and working in the garment industry. Mr. S. attributes his survival to luck.