Emílie Machálková

Emil­ia Machálek’s grand­par­ents, Pavel and Tereza, née Danielová, lived in Sva­to­bořice. There, Pavel Holomek’s father, Tomáš, man­aged to arrange for his chil­dren to set­tle in the vil­lage — he went to the author­i­ties and even wrote to Vien­na in order to win rights and enti­tle­ments for his chil­dren that they would not have been able to obtain as non-res­i­dents of the vil­lage. They no longer had to live like their par­ents in the Roma camp near Kyjov.

Pavel Holomek earned his liv­ing as a horse trad­er, while his wife, nine years old­er, helped the farm­ers on the land. In 1901, Barn­abáš was born to them, but he died at the age of six months. In 1903 Rosí­na was born, two years lat­er Štěpán, in 1907 Stanislav, in 1911 Tomáš and four years lat­er Čeněk. After the war, the chil­dren entered the munic­i­pal school for the first time — Tomáš, an excep­tion­al­ly bright boy, start­ed study­ing at the gym­na­si­um in Kyjov at the age of ten and was lat­er admit­ted to Charles Uni­ver­si­ty in Prague to study law. When she reached school-leav­ing age, the eldest, Rosí­na, who would lat­er become the moth­er of Emil­ia Machálková, mar­ried Toník, a home­less Romani boy who came into the Holomeks’ ser­vice at the age of 12 and found a home with them. They had three chil­dren togeth­er — Miroslav in 1925, Emílie a year lat­er and Stanislav in 1935.

In 1936[1], Tomáš Holomek, uncle of Emílie Machálek, mar­ried Hed­vi­ka [Imri­chová (ed.)] from Milo­tice near Kyjov. Because they were expect­ing a child, he had to inter­rupt his stud­ies and start­ed work­ing as a clerk in the glass­works in Kyjov, but after a while he resumed his stud­ies. When he was about to grad­u­ate as a father of two, he was one of the first to be expelled from school in response to stu­dent protests against the Nazi occupation.

In the sum­mer of 1934, Emílie Machálková’s par­ents moved with her to Neso­vice to rent­ed accom­mo­da­tion in a fam­i­ly house. Her son Mirek stayed with his grand­par­ents because after the hol­i­days he was to enter the tec­ni­cal gym­na­si­um in Kyjov. 

[1] Actu­al­ly 1939. (ed.)

In 1940, Emílie Machálková and her broth­er Miroslav were put to work in a fac­to­ry, she in Slavkov, her broth­er in Bučovice. Because the work in the fac­to­ry was med­ical­ly haz­ardous, the broth­er fell seri­ous­ly ill, but the doc­tor wrote a cer­tifi­cate about tuber­cu­lo­sis and he was able to stay at home and study until the end of the war. In March 1943, some men [prob­a­bly gen­darmes] came for the Holomeks in Kyjov, Sobůlky and Sva­to­bořice. They took the grand­par­ents, their sons Stanislav, Štěpán and Čeněk and his wife Emílie. Their three-year-old daugh­ter Růžen­ka had been pre­vi­ous­ly tak­en in by a woman friend of theirs. Štěpán’s wife Cecílie, née Dudíková, a Czech, was left alone with six chil­dren. Emílie Machálková even­tu­al­ly took Růžen­ka to their home in Neso­vice. All the detainees were tak­en to Brno to a col­lec­tion point on the site of the abat­toir. From there, after two days, they were deport­ed to con­cen­tra­tion camp [Auschwitz II-Birke­nau]. Tereza and Pavel Holomko were even­tu­al­ly released. Their son Tomáš was warned in time and hid with his wife’s rel­a­tives, and lat­er he also hid with the fam­i­lies of his class­mates. The chil­dren were hid­den by his wife.

A Ger­man inspec­tor from the Brno Com­mis­sari­at [Franz] Herzig tried in vain to track down Tomáš Holomek and his chil­dren. A Czech inspec­tor and fam­i­ly friend [Kle­ment] Boda[1] was instru­men­tal in res­cu­ing oth­er mem­bers of the Holomek fam­i­ly – he warned Tereza and Pavel Holomek they might be re-arrest­ed, and they hid in the Chři­by woods near their daugh­ter Rosi­na’s house. The fugi­tives were tak­en care of by for­est work­ers and local game­keep­ers. After three months, a Czech gen­darme traced the cou­ple, but because the wife was uncon­scious, he took only Pavel Holomek to the Gestapo in Brno. Tereza Holomková was found by uniden­ti­fied peo­ple and brought half-dead to Rosí­na, where a doc­tor suc­cess­ful­ly fought for her life for three weeks. When Rosí­na and Toník Holomek and their fam­i­ly were final­ly to be deport­ed to the Auschwitz II-Birke­nau con­cen­tra­tion camp, the may­or of Neso­vice, [Josef] Kil­ián, inter­ced­ed with the author­i­ties, includ­ing the Gestapo in Prague, and in the end they were both removed from the trans­port. At home, Rosí­na took care not only of the lit­tle Ružen­ka and her recov­er­ing moth­er, but lat­er also of 18-year-old Angela[2] that she said was a pris­on­er from Greece, secret­ly brought with him by Emílie’s cousin Eduard Holomek.[3], two years who senior, when he escaped from Aus­tria. At the begin­ning of 1944[4] Rosí­na and Emílie Holomko­va were warned to pre­pare for ster­il­iza­tion. How­ev­er, the pro­ce­dure was even­tu­al­ly post­poned and not performed.

[1] Ste­jně tak se výz­nam­ně zasadil o záchranu šesti dětí Cecílie a Štěpá­na Holomkových.

[2] Příj­mení neuvedeno.

[3] A mem­ber of Fran­tišek’s fam­i­ly, a broth­er of Pavel Holomek, the only one to sur­vive the war, thanks to the help of a Ger­man school­friend. (ed.)

[4] In fact it was in 1945.

In July 1945, the Holomeks were vis­it­ed by the Šubrt fam­i­ly from Brno, for­mer pris­on­ers of Auschwitz, who told them that none of their rel­a­tives had sur­vived.[1]

Tereza Holomková returned to Sva­to­bořice with lit­tle Růžen­ka, Eduard Holomek and Angela. Her only son Tomáš, who sur­vived the war, became a mil­i­tary pros­e­cu­tor in Brno and lived there with his wife Hed­vi­ka and their two chil­dren Marcela and Karel.

Emil­ia Machálková’s old­er broth­er Miroslav grad­u­at­ed from sec­ondary school in 1945 and was admit­ted to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pol­i­tics in Brno. Dur­ing his stud­ies he worked in Zlín, where he mar­ried and after grad­u­a­tion became the direc­tor of the polit­i­cal school in Kroměříž. His younger broth­er Stanislav grad­u­at­ed from the hotel col­lege in Mar­ián­ské Lázně in 1957 and worked in a local hotel with his wife Lída.

Emílie Machálková also want­ed to study, but she became preg­nant with her class­mate Jan Machálek. In 1946, their daugh­ter was born. A year lat­er they moved to Jeseník to live with her hus­band’s par­ents, where they got a two-room apart­ment. In the fol­low­ing years they had three more chil­dren. Jan Machálek worked as a house painter and played foot­ball for Jeseník Sports Club; Emílie took part in Sokol train­ing, worked in a butcher’s shop and lat­er became a shop man­ag­er. In 1965 she won first place in the com­pe­ti­tion ​“With a song at the cim­balom”. One daugh­ter grad­u­at­ed from teacher train­ing school, anoth­er became a chi­ropodist, her son became a wait­er and her youngest daugh­ter enrolled at the dra­ma conservatory.

One of the daugh­ters emi­grat­ed to Aus­tralia in 1968, leav­ing her ten-month-old daugh­ter at home with her moth­er. Because she emi­grat­ed, the fam­i­ly was sub­ject­ed to inter­ro­ga­tions by the State Secu­ri­ty Police, and, as Machálková said, she hat­ed the invaders.

After 1989 Machálková devot­ed her­self inten­sive­ly to her extend­ed fam­i­ly and singing. In 1997, she per­formed in Prague in a con­cert com­mem­o­rat­ing the expe­ri­ence of the Holo­caust. On that occa­sion, she shook hands with then Pres­i­dent Václav Hav­el, whom she held in high esteem.

[1] The broth­ers Štěpán and Stanislav attempt­ed to escape with oth­er Romani pris­on­ers and were exe­cut­ed as an exam­ple on 22 May 1943. The younger broth­er, Čeněk, died of typhus on 12 June 1943. His wife Emílie stayed in Auschwitz vol­un­tar­i­ly, not want­i­ng to leave her moth­er. She and her father-in-law, Pavel Holomek, were prob­a­bly among the Roma who were mur­dered on the night of August 2 – 3, 1944. But accord­ing to oth­er sources, both died ear­li­er. (ed.)