Emílie Danielová

Before the war, Emílie Danielová’s fam­i­ly lived in the vil­lage of Pašovice,[1] where they had three small wood­en cot­tages. Her par­ents lived in one with her youngest broth­er Žanko, and her broth­ers Laďa and Lud­vík in neigh­bour­ing cot­tages.[2] Her sis­ter Berta mar­ried a man called Mur­ka[3] who lived in the vil­lage of Bojkovice. Emílie’s father Fran­tišek Herák was a black­smith. He forged chains for cows, and hoes, and sold his prod­ucts in the sur­round­ing vil­lages. Before the war Emílie Heráková, still unmar­ried, lived with a non-Roma man, who worked in the post office in the vil­lage of Mys­ločovice; they did not marry. 

[1] In the Podčupy, dis­trict of Uher­ské Hradiště. (ed.)

[2] It is not clear from the nar­ra­tion whether this meant the remain­ing two cot­tages or two more.

[3] First name not provided.

In 1942 Emílie Danielová was tak­en to Brno [to the provin­cial com­pul­so­ry labour facil­i­ty in what is today Lidice Street (ed.)], where they shaved off her hair – includ­ing under her arms and else­where, as she said her­self – and from there to Hodonín, where the pris­on­ers broke up stones for paving high­ways. They were beat­en by the gen­darmes, but Emílie Danielová said that those Roma who held some posi­tion in the camp treat­ed them worse.

Emílie’s hus­band Hynek Daniel tried to vis­it her in Hodonín, but was not allowed in. He left in tears, able only leave a loaf of bread and a piece of sala­mi for her at the gate­house. They lat­er trans­port­ed him to Auschwitz and he nev­er returned. Emílie Danielová spent about a year in Hodonín, before she her­self was put on a trans­port to Auschwitz.[1] She nev­er saw her par­ents again, who had end­ed up in Auschwitz ear­li­er[2] – only her youngest broth­er Žanko. He begged her for food and so she gave him a piece of the bread she had from Hodonín.

She described how they were beat­en by the SS on arrival, and chil­dren were torn from their moth­ers. She was giv­en wood­en clogs and a striped prison uni­form, which she wore for the entire two whole years, and a num­ber was tat­tooed on her fore­arm. She was allo­cat­ed to Block no. 25.[3] They lay on bunks three tiers high, where the women on the upper lev­els often could not con­trol their bod­i­ly func­tions, and the fae­ces dripped down. All they had to sleep under was a dirty blan­ket. They suf­fered from cold, were unable to wash, and were attacked by lice, while the walls swarmed with bed bugs.

They began with roll call [in the ear­ly morn­ing] at which the guards count­ed them and issued orders in Ger­man. This was fol­lowed by work – they had to car­ry heavy stones, fifty to six­ty kilos accord­ing to Emílie Danielová, and any­one who couldn’t lift them was beat­en by the SS. Dogs were also set on them, and one of these left a long scar on her right calf.

They suf­fered from ter­ri­ble hunger in Auschwitz. Ear­ly in the morn­ing they had tea, which made them swell up. Lunch was boiled beet­root – in her words it was no more than water; and sup­per was bread made with saw­dust. They ate grass and dan­de­lions, and some pris­on­ers tried to scrape the remains of food from the bar­rels in the kitchen. This was how Emílie Danielová’s younger broth­er Žanek died; he was caught in the act and shot on the spot.

Emílie’s sis­ter Berta was so thin and starved, she could no longer walk. When Berta was put in the infir­mary, Emílie came to see her and broke down, say­ing she could no longer car­ry on. Berta com­fort­ed her, and because she could no longer eat she gave Emílie her own bread short­ly before she died.

Emílie Danielová remem­bered that dead bod­ies were lying all round them on the ground and peo­ple were tread­ing on them. No one cared about any­thing any longer. They all knew they were being burnt in the huge cre­ma­to­ria but were not allowed to men­tion it.

Danielová was being moved from Auschwitz to Ravens­brück[4] when two pris­on­ers escaped. The rest of the pris­on­ers were pun­ished to teach them a les­son – they had to stand with their arms raised and went four days with­out food. From Ravens­brück Emílie Danielová was assigned to in a labour com­man­do in Wit­ten­berg. She worked in a fac­to­ry and sur­vived there to the end of the war.

[1] Trans­port to Auschwitz on 22 August 1943. (ed.)

[2] Trans­port to Auschwitz on 8 March 1943. (ed.)

[3] The posi­tion of kapo was held by a Ger­man Roma called A. Lutz. (ed.)

[4] Prob­a­bly on the trans­port of 2 August 1944. (ed.)

Wit­ten­berg was lib­er­at­ed by the Red Army. Emílie Danielová remem­bered that the Rus­sians stroked them and gave them food. Although they were hun­gry, it was not pos­si­ble to eat nor­mal­ly straight­away. Those who could not stop them­selves and bolt­ed down the food, died. They had to get used to food grad­u­al­ly and what real­ly did them good was the sug­ar that the Rus­sians poured into pieces of cloth­ing they held out.

All at once, they were free and could go any­where they want­ed. Emílie Danielová and her four friends put what they had been giv­en them with their cloth­ing into a baby car­riage and set off for home on foot. She walked as far as Ostra­va and from there found trans­port to her native Pašovice. She remem­bered how the neigh­bours wel­comed her with emo­tion. Of the oth­er mem­bers of the fam­i­ly, only her broth­er Laďa returned home, all the rest per­ished in the con­cen­tra­tion camps.