Oral history interview with Božena Růžičová

Oral history interview with Antoniň Vinter

Oral History

Antonin Vinter describes his life in the Romani community of a small Czech town, where his father sold textiles; his family being detained and sent to Lety, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia in 1942 and being eight years old at the time; his father working as the chief cook and being able to smuggle food to his family; his belief that the strength from this food and the fact that he hid whenever the Kapos arrived contributed to his survival; witnessing prisoners being tortured and killed by Kapos; seeing his own cousin hanged; being liberated after one year; spending some time in a mental institution; and recovering and becoming a chef.

Oral history interview with Irma Valdová

Oral History

Oral history interview with Emilie Danielová

Oral History

Oral history interview with Jan Holomek

Oral History

Jan Holomek, born and raised in Jalubí, recollects events and talks about his experiences between 1943 and 1945, highlighting the deportation of Roma (including him) from his native village in the district of Uherské Hradiště; life and the neighborhood before they were taken by the Czech police; life inside the concentration camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald, the work they performed, and the treatment they received from the guards; and the death march which he and fellow prisoners were forced to take just before the war ended.

Oral history interview with Marie Kryštofová

Oral History

Oral history interview with Alžběta Lagronova

Oral History

Alzbeta Lagronova describes spending her childhood traveling with Romani caravans, from which her parents sold textiles; her family being deported to Lety concentration camp in Czechoslovakia in 1942; being chosen to be a cleaning woman for high-ranking officials and her work cleaning their offices and houses; being able to stay with her mother on Sundays; her job allowing her to bear witness to many official activities; the activities of the camp commander; witnessing guards beating prisoners in their offices; indeterminable injections being distributed to the prisoners; her family being locked in a hut all day, and when her cousin escaped, the whole family being interrogated; the interrogation resulting in her brother's death, and being told later that her sister died of typhus; being set free in spring 1943; and moving to Slovakia.

Oral history interview with Ladislav Stockinger

Oral History

Ladislav Stockinger, born in 1930 in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes living in a Romani community in the southern Bohemia region of Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) with his mother; being sent with his mother to Ceske Budejovice, Bohemia (Czech Republic) and then the same day being sent on to Lety concentration camp in Czechoslovakia; life in the camp and smuggling food from the kitchen to survive; discovering the dead body of his mother; escaping from the camp with a friend, but being brought back after police discovered them in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); he and his friend being punished severely upon their return to Lety and being locked in a wagon for three months with little food, water, or heat; having to relearn to walk after their release; being released after a year at Lety; living with a family at the Czech-Austrian border in southern Bohemia; the communists rising to power in Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s; being accused of spying at the border and sentenced to imprisonment; being in communist-run concentration and labor camps for the following 10 years; and being released and working until his retirement.

Oral history interview with Karel Vrba

Oral History

Karel Vrba describes how his family was not Romani in origin, but the Nazis persecuted many members of his family; two of his brothers refusing to work for Nazis, and being punished by deportation to Auschwitz concentration camp; living in the southern Bohemia region of Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) when he was accused of stealing; he and his family being taken to Lety concentration camp in Czechoslovakia; being put on kitchen duty, so he did not starve like many others in the camp; not being able to smuggle food out to his family, who all became weak; his daughter falling from a bed and dying and his father dying of typhus; conditions in the camp; the lack of medicine; being allowed at one point to live with his wife in a hut; how most of the guards were relatively fair but some were sadists; being released from Lety and returning home, where his house had been looted; moving to Nova Bystrice, Bohemia (Czech Republic); and being reimbursed for his time in prison.

Oral history interview with Marie Sendreová

Oral History

Marie Sendreova, born in 1927 in Medzev, Slovakia into a Romani family, describes her mother, who died in childbirth; being raised by her grandmother near Kosice, Slovakia; traveling with her grandmother to Kosice to visit relatives in 1942 when they were arrested; being brought with her grandmother to a transit camp and then transported by train to Terezin concentration camp; hearing music as she walked from the railway station to the camp; being transported six months later to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany and music playing again as she walked to the train station; being transported again, this time without her sick and dying grandmother, to Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany; contracting typhus; being liberated and being found by a male prisoner who she had once helped and going with him to Czechoslovakia, where they got married; moving to Kunovice, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia), which was her husband's hometown; her husband’s death and remarrying; and moving to Cemice, Czechoslovakia (no longer exists).

Oral history interview with Geisa Olah

Oral History

Geisa Olah, born in 1926, describes being one of nine children in his Romani family; receiving some schooling and working with his father making bricks; joining the partisan group Jegorov in 1944 and meeting Czechoslovakian military commander Ludvik Svoboda; receiving two days of training then fighting in the mountains of Slovakia; being captured in November 1944 and being taken to a prisoners of war camp in Hamburg, Germany, where he remained until liberation; returning home after liberation; leaving the military in 1948; marrying and working in a glass factory in Teplice, Czechoslovakia; working on an agricultural farm; and he and his wife having nine children.

Oral history interview with Antonie Kroková

Oral History

Antonie Krokova (née Serynkova) describes being one of eight children in a Romani family in Beroun, Germany (Czech Republic); her identification card listing her birth date as October 28, 1925, while she believes that she was actually born in 1935; how in 1942 a policeman came to her home and deported her entire family to Lety concentration camp in Czechoslovakia; living in a children's block in Lety and being put to work hauling firewood; being transported with her family to the so-called "Gypsy" camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp; being selected for the gas chambers then saved by some officials; being included in a transport to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany; being sent to Buchenwald concentration camp; being evacuated to the Wittenberg labor camp in Germany, where she worked in a munitions factory; returning after liberation to Beroun and locating an aunt who took her in; and traveling to Tachov, Czechoslovakia and Marianske Lazne (Marienbad), Czechoslovakia, where she met her future husband.

Oral history interview with František Daniel

Oral History

Frantisek Daniel, born on September 6, 1921 in okres Vyškov, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his large Romani family; living in a reform school in Moravsky Krumlov, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) until age 10, when he returned to his hometown and went to school for eight years; training as a blacksmith under his father, but soon returning to Moravsky Krumlov and working as a gardener; his father and brother-in-law being apprehended around 1940 and being sent to a labor camp in Morava, Czechoslovakia (Moravia, Czech Republic); his father’s death and taking on the responsibility of caring for his family; trying to cross the border into Slovakia with his family, but being captured by the Germans en route; being imprisoned in Tesin (Cieszyn), Poland, from which he escaped and returned home; being caught again by the gendarmes in 1942 and escaping again; being imprisoned in Vyskov, Czechoslovakia for being caught without identification papers; being tried in court and released, then arrested again in Brno, Czechoslovakia; being transported to Hodonin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia; being sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland; being sent to Buchenwald, then Dora in Germany; the evacuation of Dora and being transferred to Nordhausen; being liberated from Nordhausen by the British Army; going to Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), where he married and had children; moving to Plzen, Czechoslovakia; and getting married a second time and having four more children.

Oral history interview with Sebastian Daniel

Oral History

Sebastian Daniel, born on December 27, 1922 in Zopy, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes his Romani family; growing up in Chválkovice, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), where his father was a blacksmith; his father being arrested around 1940 and died soon after; being sent with his mother to the so-called "Gypsy" camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland; being transported three weeks later to Stammlager Auschwitz in Poland, where he built watchtowers; volunteering to leave on a transport out of Auschwitz; being taken to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, where he was reunited with his brother; a brothel in the camp for prison officials; being transferred to Dora concentration camp in Germany; his job delivering food to soldiers and avoiding starvation because of this access to food; leaving the camp after liberation and going into hiding; being without food and quickly falling ill; a German family caring for him until his recovery, at which point they gave him a horse and cart to travel back home; returning to Chválkovice; moving to Prostejov, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); and fleeing in 1947 to Wurzburg, Germany where he went into business selling rags.

Oral history interview with Anna Růžičová

Oral History

Anna Ruzickova, born in December 1928, describes being one of seven children in a Romani family from Nechanice, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); all her siblings attending school; going to agricultural school; her family being warned of the approaching deportations by Czech gendarmes; her brothers joining the partisan forces and her father refusing to leave Anna's pregnant mother; her parents being arrested, but a wealthy uncle bribing officials for their release; being arrested with her grandmother in 1942; being sent to Lety concentration camp in Czechoslovakia; staying in Lety for 9 to 13 months and then going home; being liberated by the Russian liberators when she was living in Pribram, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); opening a textile stand and her husband working in a mine; her husband’s death; and moving from Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) to Brandys nad Labem, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic).

Oral history interview with Marie Ondrasová

Oral History

Marie Ondrasova, born on January 1, 1927 into a Romani family living in Tvorovice, Czech Republic, describes being the eldest of seven children; not attending school and caring for her family instead; her father being arrested by gendarmes and shot; the rest of her family, including her pregnant mother, being deported to Hodonin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia; being appointed as a nurse in the camp infirmary and helping her mother to give birth; having a privileged position as a nurse in the camp and not having to appear at roll calls; the "racial scientists" coming into the camp to do aesthetic evaluations and the Nazis declaring her grandmother a German; her whole family being moved into the infirmary, where they remained until the camp's liquidation; her family going home, while she stayed at the camp after its evacuation to help; the family being warned of the approaching deportations and setting out on foot to Slovakia; her family being stopped at Hrozenkov and a friendly gendarme hiding them in a jail in Brno-Cejl, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); reuniting after the war with her family and the baby her mother had given birth to in Hodonin; going with her sister to work on the farm of a former employer; her family dispersing throughout the world; selling cotton candy for 25 years at amusement parks; and moving to Liberec, Czechoslovakia and having five children.

Oral history interview with Antonin Hlaváček

Oral History

Antonin Hlavacek, born on October 11, 1926 in Kaliste, Okres Písek, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes being one of seven children in a Romani family; attending school and then going to a corrections home in Opatovice nad Labem, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); being taken in 1943 with seven boys from the corrections home to Lety concentration camp in Czechoslovakia; being sent with the boys to Ostrava, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), where they joined other Roma; being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, a concentration camp in Poland in March 1943; being sent to work in the potato Kommando in Birkenau, where he could access food to supplement his diet; falling ill and being released from the infirmary the day before all the patients were liquidated to the gas chambers; being transported to the Stammlager camp, which had better conditions; being transported after six months to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany; a brothel in the camp and the imprisoned women throwing bread to the prisoners from their windows; escaping from his work in a quarry, but being captured; being evacuated at the end of 1944 to Gross-Rosen concentration camp; marching to Dachau concentration camp, where they were liberated by the Western armies; reuniting with his parents two weeks later in Ratiborske Hory, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) and recuperating for six months; working in a forest; getting married and having two children; living in Doksany, Czechoslovakia; being denounced for berating communists and spending four years at Jachymov, a labor camp in Czechoslovakia; and divorcing his first wife, remarrying, and having four more children.

Oral history interview with Jana Marhoulová

Oral History

Jana Marhoulova (née Lagrinova), born on April 29, 1932 into a Romani family, describes living in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); her father being arrested in 1940 and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp and then to Buchenwald and Dachau; her father not returning from Dachau; being taken in May 1942 to a collection camp in Prague and then to Lety concentration camp in Czechoslovakia with the rest of her family; her mother and sister securing jobs cleaning the gendarmes' homes, which allowed them to obtain some food; attempting escape once, but being captured and punished with beatings; the camp being evacuated in March 1944; leaving the camp and going to live with her grandmother; refusing to go to school and often running away from home; her grandmother sending her to a reform school in Chroustovice, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) managed by nuns and staying there for six years; leaving school when she became independent at age 21; working in kitchens; and getting married and having one child.

Oral history interview with Markéta Holomková

Oral History

Marketa Holomkova, born March 27, 1927 in Uherský Brod, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes being part of a Romani family; her father’s occupation polishing shoes; not attending school; her family being sent to Auschwitz (possibly in 1943) after first being sent to Ostrava, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); being sent to Block 10; getting tattooed; roll calls; her memories of the Romani camp; working in the forest; her brothers being killed; being sent to Ravensbrück; being liberated; being in Hamburg, Germany for two months; going to Brno, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), where she stayed with her brother; living on a cooperative farm; getting married; and finding that their home in Uherský Brod had been looted.

Oral history interview with Marie Proházková

Oral History

Margita (Marie) Prohazkova (née Miklosova), born on October 13, 1924 in Regetovka, Slovakia, describes being one of eight children in a very religious Romani family; her family being very poor and one of four Romani families in the village; being deported to Dubova concentration camp in Poland in 1943; the harsh conditions in Dubova, including the scarcity of food, daily executions, and sleeping on the floor; the inmates fleeing in the autumn of 1944 when the Russians came to Dubova; walking alone for three weeks; arriving at the door of her stepmother's home and surviving by begging in the village; her father returning from his internment and taking care of her; going with her father to Varnsdorf, Germany (Czech Republic) and living in the empty apartments of Germans; getting married and having six children; her first husband leaving her; and getting remarried and having five more children.

Oral history interview with Rudolf Daniel

Oral History

Rudolf Daniel, born on August 15, 1924 in Bilovec, Czechoslovakia, describes being one of six children in a Romani family; attending school for several years and then working on farms before being deported to Austria for forced labor; returning home in 1941 for a holiday; getting married and not returning to Austria; being deported with other Roma to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland; spending several years in the camp neighboring the Romani camp in Birkenau before being transferred to Auschwitz I; being taken to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany; being transferred after six months to Dora concentration camp in Germany, where food was scarce and conditions were bad; being marched from Dora to Bergen-Belsen in 1945; Bergen-Belsen being liberated; returning to Bilovec and doing manual labor; his first wife dying in Birkenau and getting married again; moving to Teplice, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) and then Olomouc, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); and having six children.

Oral history interview with Antonin Daniel

Oral History

Antonin Daniel, born on June 4, 1922 in Bilovec, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes being one of five children in a Romani family; being sent to Hodonin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia in 1940; working in a rock quarry; being released after seven months and returning to Bilovec; being deported one year later to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland; constructing a Romani camp (Birkenau) in Rajsko, Poland; being one of 200 Roma sent to Stammlager Auschwitz, where he was reunited with his brothers; working at a railway station, loading and unloading wagons; being discharged from the infirmary for a leg wound and being sent to work in the gas chambers; helping to undress prisoners and collect their jewelry; being forbidden to reveal to people where they were going as they headed into the gas chambers; peering into the chamber during the gassings and watching people falling down dead; working in the gas chambers for two days and spending two days hauling bodies to the crematoria; getting more food for working these assignments; he and his brothers being transported to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany in 1944; being transferred to Dora concentration camp in Germany, where conditions were harsh; being part of a death march to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in the spring of 1945; the liberation of Bergen-Belsen in April 1945; returning with his brothers to Bilovec, finding their house plundered and ruined; moving to Olomouc, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) and getting a job working in construction; and getting married in 1950 and having eight children.