František Holomek

Fran­tišek Holomek was assigned to a trans­port on 3 March 1943. Before that he had worked in Vien­na, and so in Veselí nad Moravou he went to see a police offi­cer called Samek from Vra­cov, say­ing that he need­ed to return to Vien­na, where he had some mon­ey. But Samek told him he had to go, and so he and his whole fam­i­ly – his first wife and their four chil­dren – arrived at the Na Lapači inn in Veselí, from where they were tak­en to the Sokol cen­tre in Staré Měs­to near Uher­ské Hradiště and then by train via Ostra­va to Auschwitz. On arrival[1] they were tat­tooed with num­bers (he specif­i­cal­ly names a Pole, Bog­dan, a polit­i­cal pris­on­er, who tat­tooed them), had their hair cut and all their pubic hair shaved off. Twen­ty-one Holomeks and five Daniels came from Veselí nad Moravou; and from the imme­di­ate fam­i­ly, Fran­tišek Holomek’s moth­er, broth­er and sis­ters. About the third day they had to go to the wash­room. First they had to take a bath, and then they were giv­en some kind of injec­tion, after which he said they were ​“numb and stiff”. Then they immersed alter­nate­ly in cold and hot water, which scald­ed them. The order to do this was giv­en direct­ly by Dr. Josef Men­gele, and oth­er doc­tors, includ­ing Pol­ish ones, super­vised them. They had to under­go this pro­ce­dure every week through­out their impris­on­ment; he said it caused the deaths of some chil­dren and women.

He also recalled that in any kind of weath­er, even in win­ter, they had to stand bare­foot and naked crammed togeth­er for two or three hours out­side. First he was on blocks 16 and 21, and final­ly on num­ber 14, where he was already with the woman he mar­ried after the war. There were three tiers of bunks in the bar­racks, each of which could accom­mo­date eleven to twelve peo­ple, often a whole fam­i­ly. Food was brought by Jew­ish pris­on­ers in bar­rels. At first the Holomeks had some­thing to eat from home, but soon they had to eat camp food – beet soup with a piece of bread. They were giv­en some cof­fee for break­fast; and he said that when he went home from work he would some­times dig up dan­de­lions and eat them.

First he worked to repair roads, shov­el­ling all day. The guards beat them until some of them died, includ­ing his wife’s grand­fa­ther. The corpses were piled up and in the evening cars took them to the cre­ma­to­ri­um. Lat­er he began work­ing in the can­teen run by Pol­ish pris­on­ers, with whom he made friends;[2] he found work for his broth­er Štěpán there too. He col­lect­ed emp­ty fruit wine bot­tles. At first he had some mon­ey from home, and he describes how there was a brisk trade in mon­ey or vouch­ers and goods. The can­teen was super­vised by a Ger­man guard who gave them snacks, so they ate bet­ter than the oth­er prisoners.

He con­tract­ed typhus in Auschwitz, but he said there was no treat­ment; one either sur­vived or died. In the sick bay they gave injec­tions, after which the per­son got a fever, and spots on his legs. He met Men­gele, who exam­ined the pris­on­ers in the sick bay. Up to 200 peo­ple a day were dying of typhus, so Men­gele start­ed to check the kitchens and ordered them to start giv­ing the chil­dren bet­ter food.

Fran­tišek Holomek said that the guards treat­ed the Jews worse than they treat­ed the Roma. The cre­ma­to­ri­um was in the woods near the camp, and at night smoke could be seen ris­ing from the chim­ney. He was in Auschwitz for about 18 months when he learned from the Poles that he was going to be gassed. In the mean­time, it was decid­ed that young pris­on­ers would not be killed if they could work, so he was trans­ferred to Buchen­wald con­cen­tra­tion camp.

When the Czechs at Buchen­wald learned that oth­er Czech pris­on­ers from Auschwitz were com­ing to the camp, they col­lect­ed among them­selves two or three sacks of bread for them. Fran­tišek Holomek worked in the quar­ry, break­ing and car­ry­ing stone for the roads. The pris­on­ers often died, some of them of hunger.

From Buchen­wald he was tak­en to the Dora camp , where they were split up for work in the con­cen­tra­tion camps Ell­rich, Harzun­gen and Sach­sen­hausen, where Holomek was tak­en. That was where he lived to see lib­er­a­tion by the Red Army.[3]

[1] They arrived at the Auschwitz II — Birke­nau con­cen­tra­tion camp on 8 March 1943. (ed.)

[2] At first J. Zamowiec­ki, S. Sch­aben­beck and M. Per­s­ki, and lat­er by B. Plon­czak and S. Kwiatkows­ki when the for­mer were dis­cov­ered to have made mis­takes. (ed.)

[3] The Sach­sen­hausen con­cen­tra­tion camp was lib­er­at­ed by the Sovi­et army on 22 April 1945. (ed.)

After the Lib­er­a­tion, Holomek spent about three more weeks in the camp, after which he was giv­en a med­ical exam­i­na­tion and was able to start his jour­ney home. He walked with oth­er Jew­ish pris­on­ers, as they did not want to wait for the bus­es that took the pris­on­ers to Prague. Besides him, out of the entire fam­i­ly, only his sib­lings Štěpán and Drahuša returned home to Veselí nad Moravou.