Anastázie Bystřická

Anastázie Bystřická had two broth­ers who were twins, and three sis­ters. The eldest sis­ter Bože­na lived with Alois Dani­hel; they were not mar­ried and had three chil­dren. Only her father Fran­tišek Adam went out to work; her moth­er Fran­tiš­ka Adamová and the oth­er women of the fam­i­ly were at home. They had two cov­ered wag­ons near the vil­lage of Špičky, but they used them only for living.

Gen­darmes from the gen­darmerie sta­tion in the vil­lage of Čer­notín came for the fam­i­ly.[1] The gen­darmes told them to pack, but to take only essen­tials, as they would return imme­di­ate­ly. At the sta­tion in Čer­notín they were pho­tographed and their per­son­al details were record­ed. From there they were tak­en to the prison in Hran­ice, where oth­er Romani fam­i­lies had been tak­en, and then to Olo­mouc, where they stayed in a build­ing that Bystřická likened to a cour­t­house with large rooms. She didn’t know exact­ly how long they were there; again, more Roma arrived from the sur­round­ing area, and final­ly they were all trans­port­ed by pas­sen­ger train to the con­cen­tra­tion camp in Hodonín.[2] Anastázie Bystřická said there were already Roma pris­on­ers in the camp at that time, but not many of them.

After they had arrived in Hodonín, their hair was cut off, their body hair shaved, and they were giv­en camp cloth­ing.[3] All the pris­on­ers in the camp, men, women and chil­dren, had to work; they built a road through the for­est using pick­ax­es and loaded earth and mud into carts. Anas­ta­sia Bystřická rode in a cart and worked with her younger sis­ter and an old man. One day the wood used to brake the cart broke; the old man could­n’t hold the cart, he let go and it went out of con­trol. No one was hurt, but the cart was derailed. Anas­ta­sia Bystřická took the blame and was bru­tal­ly beat­en: the gen­darme who beat her with a stick count­ed two blows as one. For sev­er­al days after­wards she could not walk, although she went to the roll call in the morn­ing, but then she report­ed to the sick bay, where she spent three days.

After about a year they were tak­en in cars to the sta­tion, loaded onto a freight train, and, she said, trav­elled like cat­tle; they knew they were being tak­en to Auschwitz con­cen­tra­tion camp. They were giv­en a piece of bread and jam for the jour­ney. When the train stopped, SS guards with rifles were wait­ing for them and they were herd­ed on foot into the camp, where they were tat­tooed with num­bers. The pris­on­ers knew that in Auschwitz peo­ple were being sent to the gas cham­ber and that they would be giv­en soap and a tow­el before­hand. When they too received them, all of them — the whole fam­i­ly – were ter­ri­fied and in tears, but these real­ly were show­ers; then they were giv­en camp cloth­ing and tak­en to the block.

The ​“block elders” were, in her opin­ion, even worse than the SS. She men­tions a guard known as ​“Many”, who did not treat their fam­i­ly so bad­ly, although he did oth­ers.[4] The sec­ond ​“block elder” [who is not named] is said to have behaved even worse. She stat­ed that they got to know Many and his wife and that this was prob­a­bly why he treat­ed them better.

At the begin­ning of August, Anas­ta­sia Bystřic­ka was trans­port­ed from Auschwitz to Ravens­brück[5] and from there to a small camp in the woods, the name of which she can­not remem­ber, but where the pris­on­ers were main­ly Jew­ish women. By that time, Allied planes were fly­ing over­head and the Ger­mans demand­ed that the camp be kept dark and qui­et. She no longer remem­bered how long she spent there.

From there, the women pris­on­ers set out on a death march. They had noth­ing to eat, so they dug around in the earth or ate raw meat from hors­es that had been shot. They had no water, and were not allowed to drink. As soon as they made any move that might look like an escape attempt, the guards threat­ened to shoot them. By the time they arrived in a court­yard, even the guards were tired, so they decid­ed to rest there. Four or five young women decid­ed to escape, say­ing that they would rather be shot on the spot than have to go on. They hid, and when they came out in the morn­ing, the pris­on­ers and the guards were gone.

Togeth­er with the oth­er women, Anas­ta­sia Bystřic­ka then walked past emp­ty hous­es where peo­ple were flee­ing from the approach­ing Red Army. They were main­ly look­ing for food; then they would go into the for­est and cook some­thing to eat, but they imme­di­ate­ly vom­it­ed every­thing they ate. In the morn­ing they met a sol­dier walk­ing towards them across the field. One of the women, Pold­ina, could speak Ger­man and Pol­ish and was able to talk to him. He was Russ­ian, and he told them that all around were forests and Ger­mans in them who would shoot them. He then accom­pa­nied them from house to house and ordered the peo­ple who had returned in the mean­time to cook for the women.

[1] It is not stat­ed when.

[2] It is not stat­ed when.

[3] The pris­on­ers of the Gyp­sy camp in Hodonín were dressed in dis­card­ed mil­i­tary uni­forms. (ed.)

[4] The nick­name Many was giv­en to Blažej Didy, a Czech Romani man who was a low-rank­ing prison func­tionary in the gyp­sy camp and for this activ­i­ty was sen­tenced to life impris­on­ment by the spe­cial peo­ple’s court in Brno on 29 April 1947. (ed.) His name is also spelled ​“Dydy”, and his nick­name also appears in oth­er sources as ​“Man­nus” or ​“Man”. Schus­ter, Michal. Pro­ces s Blaže­jem Dydym na zák­ladě mater­iálů Mimořád­ného lidového soudu v Brně roku 1947. In: Romano Džaniben 1/2013.

[5] Trans­port of 2 August 1944 (ed.)

They all went home togeth­er, going from vil­lage to vil­lage, their lodg­ing most­ly arranged by the local may­or. Peo­ple vol­un­tar­i­ly gave them food once they began to describe their expe­ri­ences. Even­tu­al­ly they reached Ostra­va, where they split up. Anastázie Bystřická went to Hran­ice and found only her aunt, her moth­er’s sis­ter. Then her niece Adéla [Reiskupová] heard about her return, and came to get her and they remained together.