Testimony of Dan Thomas Spira, born in Nitra, Czechoslovakia, 1932, regarding his experiences in Novaky, Nitra and Banska Bystrica

Testimony of Dan Thomas Spira, born in Nitra, Czechoslovakia, 1932, regarding his experiences in Novaky, Nitra and Banska Bystrica His childhood in Novaky in a well-to-do, traditional family. Expulsion from the public school in Novaky in the context of the anti-Jewish restrictions, 1940; dismissal of his father by the fascist party from his position as a physician in Novaky; his family's move to Nitra; life in Nitra among the Orthodox religious community including the witness attending a Jewish school; deportation of his family to Novaky N-204 camp [?], 1942; camp life including his father's labor as the camp physician and the establishment of a Zionist Jewish school that emphasized physical fitness; camp joins the Slovak National Uprising, 29 August 1944; move of his family to Banska Bystrica; suppression of the Slovak National Uprising by the German Army, 27 October 1944; his family's escape to the mountains along with the partisans; in hiding; liberation by the Red Army, April 1945. Move back to Novaky; joins the Hashomer Hatzair movement; establishment of a branch of the Hashomer Hatzair movement in Novaky; departure to [the movement's] winter camp; aliya to Israel in the context of Youth Aliyah and the Hashomer Hatzair movement, January 1949.