Helena Malíková

Hele­na Malíková had a sis­ter Maria, who was two years old­er. Their moth­er Anna died when they were nine and eleven respec­tive­ly. They were brought up by their step­fa­ther Mar­tin Holomek, who got mar­ried again to a woman with four chil­dren and did not pay much atten­tion to his own daugh­ters. Malíková grew up near Uher­ské Hradiště by the riv­er Mora­va in a set­tle­ment com­posed of old freight wag­ons behind a sug­ar fac­to­ry. The wag­ons looked like a dis­used train, but inside they were paint­ed with white oil paint and adapt­ed for liv­ing in — with a kitchen, stove and liv­ing room. One hun­dred and fifty Roma lived in them. Hele­na Malíková’s fam­i­ly was the only one that had a house of brick.[1]

[1] Cti­bor Nečas states that it was the Před­ní kruhy local­i­ty, which is now part of the town of Uher­ské Hradiště. The Romani peo­ple there orig­i­nal­ly inhab­it­ed a set­tle­ment made up of wood­en huts and tent shel­ters, as depict­ed by the painter Fran­tišek Dostalík (oil paint­ing Gyp­sy Camp in the Old Town). Dur­ing the con­struc­tion of the rail­way branch line, the dwellings had to be demol­ished and the state rail­way admin­is­tra­tion pro­vid­ed accom­mo­da­tion for the inhab­i­tants in fif­teen dis­used freight wagons.

Hele­na Malíková, her sis­ter Maria and her fos­ter father were interned in the so-called gyp­sy camp in Hodonín u Kunštá­tu. In August 1943, she took part in clean­ing up after the trans­port that took most of the impris­oned Roma and Sin­ti to the Auschwitz II — Birke­nau con­cen­tra­tion camp.

Malíková was deport­ed to the Auschwitz II-Birke­nau camp from Brno in the last mass trans­port of Roma and Sin­ti from the Pro­tec­torate, which was dis­patched on 28 Jan­u­ary 1944. In the con­cen­tra­tion camp, they car­ried out point­less work, such as mov­ing heavy stones from place to place. After the pseu­do-med­ical exper­i­ments per­formed on her in the camp, she could not have chil­dren for a long time after the war. On 15 April 1944 she was trans­port­ed to Ravens­brück; from there she was tak­en as forced labour in the under­ground muni­tions fac­to­ry in Schlieben and final­ly to the muni­tions fac­to­ry in Altenburg. Her fos­ter father and sis­ter Marie per­ished in Auschwitz II — Birkenau.

Hele­na Malíková, along with Růže­na Danielová and Vlas­ta Danielová, per­formed the song Aušvi­cate hi khér báro, which was sung by Pro­tec­torate Roma impris­oned in the Auschwitz II-Birke­nau camp.