Jozef was born in 1934 in Bánovce nad Bebravou, then part of Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia). As the country fell under the influence of Nazi Germany, his family, like many other Jews, experienced escalating antisemitic persecution.

In 1942, Jozef—just eight years old—was sent to the Nováky forced labor camp with his mother and two sisters, where they were imprisoned as forced laborers. On August 29, 1944, during the Slovak National Uprising, partisans liberated the camp, and Jozef and his family fled to nearby villages and hid in the mountains.

In this course you will learn to:

The Holocaust was the planned, systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. This genocide was fueled by antisemitism, which means prejudice against or hatred of Jewish people. The Holocaust is history’s most extreme example of antisemitism.

By learning Jozef’s story, students arm themselves with truth. When they encounter Holocaust denial or antisemitism, they’ll have the knowledge and courage to speak out—and to ensure history is never forgotten.

• Guidelines for Teaching About the Holocaust — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (ushmm.org):

  https://www.ushmm.org/teach/fundamentals/age-appropriateness

• Horrors of Auschwitz: The Numbers Behind WWII’s Deadliest Concentration Camp:
  https://www.history.com/news/auschwitz-concentration-camp-numbers

• Timeline of major events that occurred before, during, and immediately after the Holocaust:
  https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/resource-center/timeline.html

• Horrors of Auschwitz: The Numbers Behind WWII’s Deadliest Concentration Camp:
  https://www.history.com/news/auschwitz-concentration-camp-numbers