Karolina Kozáková-Vdolečková

Karoli­na Kozáková-Vdolečková came from a fam­i­ly that trav­elled around south­ern Bohemia for a liv­ing, vis­it­ing Písek, Pro­tivín, Strakon­ice and Domažlice. In 1936, the fam­i­ly stopped using the cov­ered wag­on because her father had a cus­tom-made dray made in Slaný; it was said to be beau­ti­ful and cost ​“a huge amount of mon­ey”, her father paid 40,000 crowns for it. It was a so-called štráf­ka,[1] with a red leather bench on the out­side front and inside was her moth­er’s pride and joy — a stove with a white flower paint­ed stove.

His father Robert Růžič­ka, called Ota or Oty­na, was born in 1910 in Sušice, was said to be a hard work­er and also played the accor­dion well and enjoyed it. As a horse trad­er, he used to go to mar­kets, but he also had a trade sharp­en­ing knives and scis­sors. He also worked as a wag­on dri­ver, load­ing sand in quar­ries and tak­ing it to peo­ple to build hous­es. He came from south­ern Bohemia; his par­ents had right of res­i­dence at Hluboká nad Vltavou. Kozáková-Vdolečková said they were high­ly respect­ed there, even their daugh­ter Tonča, the sur­vivor’s aunt, was friends with the may­or’s daugh­ter. In addi­tion to the Růžič­ka and Kraus fam­i­lies, her father’s extend­ed fam­i­ly includ­ed the Ger­man Roma[2] Lagron, Lang­may­er[3] and Ser­inek fam­i­lies. The Lagrons[4] were report­ed­ly wealthy Roma, with three sons who looked like movie stars. Her father’s fam­i­ly was also relat­ed to Matěj Kopeck­ý’s fam­i­ly.[5]

Her moth­er Johana, known as Žan­ka, née Čer­máková, was born in 1910 in Tišnov near Brno. She came from the Čer­mák-Janošovský[6] ‑Stu­dený-Vrba-Holomek-Habr-Daniel fam­i­lies, Čer­máková also men­tions the Absolons. Her great-grand­fa­ther had a cir­cus called Henry. 

When the fam­i­ly came to the mar­ket, where oth­er relat­ed Romani peo­ple usu­al­ly went, her moth­er would go around the hous­es, col­lect­ing knives and scis­sors for her father to sharp­en, and at the same time she would do palm-read­ing. She also sold lace, rub­ber bands, thread and oth­er hab­er­dash­ery. Instead of cash, she usu­al­ly received food­stuffs such as eggs, and some­times even meat such as chick­en. She said her father insist­ed that she always bring it home alive – he used to say that if it was stolen, he would­n’t eat it. He prid­ed him­self on rais­ing his chil­dren well. She said her moth­er was a great trad­er – peo­ple in their vil­lage would make sets of lace for bed­rooms for her and she would sell them in Hlin­sko in Bohemia. She always went away with all the goods for two days, and she would bring a lot of mon­ey home with her. Mean­while, the chil­dren took care of the house­hold, espe­cial­ly Karoli­na Kozáková-Vdolečková her­self, who took care of cook­ing, wash­ing and ironing.

Kozáková-Vdolečková had six sib­lings: four sis­ters and two broth­ers. The eldest, Anna[7], was born in 1928 in Jíloviště near Prague, and her broth­er Jan was born in the same place two years lat­er. The younger sis­ter Filomé­na was born in 1934 in Strakon­ice, Barbo­ra in 1936 in Písek. The younger of the broth­ers, Josef, was born dur­ing the war in 1943[8] and Jana after the war in 1948. The eldest sis­ter and her broth­er went to school, and their father was very care­ful to make sure that the chil­dren could read, write, count and that they ​“had an idea about life”. Every place they went with their mobile home they would park near the school and the old­er sib­lings would go there, even if only for a week. The school prin­ci­pals wrote records of their atten­dance in a spe­cial book.

The god­fa­ther of all the sib­lings was Jan Ser­inek, known as Žan­ka. He lived in Zdaboř next to the U Pletánků pub, and made his liv­ing by mak­ing slip­pers, which his wife used to go out sell­ing. They had no chil­dren of their own, and togeth­er they brought up a hand­i­capped boy from an insti­tu­tion. Karoli­na Kozáková-Vdolečková said her god­fa­ther knew four world lan­guages and in her eyes he was an won­der­ful hon­est man. His nephew Fran­tišek Ser­inek, the son of his broth­er Josef, played the accor­dion and was referred to in the con­tem­po­rary press as the King of Accor­dion­ists. Kozáková-Vdolečková’s cousins were Arnošt Vin­tr[9] and Antonín Vin­tr.[10]

[1] Lux­u­ry all-wood­en dray with an awning (ed.)

[2] Sin­ti. (ed.)

[3] Lang­ma­jer (ed.), Kozáková-Vdolečková also men­tions Lang­müller as a vari­ant of the name.

[4] Fran­tišek Lagron was prob­a­bly his father’s cousin. One of his sons, Feri Lagron, was seri­ous­ly inter­est­ed in Karoli­na Kozáková-Vdolečková. (ed.)

[5] Matěj Kopecký, the founder of Czech pup­petry lived from 1775 to 1847. Today, his sur­name is borne by some Roma who mar­ried or inter­mar­ried into the Kopecký fam­i­ly. (ed.)

[6] Janašovský, or Janešovský. (ed.)

[7] Anna Růžičková, known as Nána, see her tes­ti­mo­ny in the database.

[8] Loca­tion not specified.

[9] See his tes­ti­mo­ny in the database.

[10] See his tes­ti­mo­ny in the database.

In 1939, her par­ents saved enough mon­ey to buy a two-room house. The fam­i­ly set­tled in Zdaboř[1] in one of five hous­es by the road. Here Karoli­na Kozáková-Vdolečková start­ed first grade and her old­er sib­lings were able to attend school in near­by Bře­zové Hory.[2] The fam­i­ly built a sol­id posi­tion in the vil­lage and main­tained good rela­tions with others. 

One day, a local gen­darme came to warn them that they might be tak­en to a con­cen­tra­tion camp and advised them to go to Slo­va­kia. But the fam­i­ly stayed behind; she said they did­n’t know any­one in Slo­va­kia and did­n’t even know that there was such a thing as Slovakia.

In 1942, the fam­i­ly was trans­ferred to Prague before they were ​“tak­en to a con­cen­tra­tion camp”, as she put it. The Roma were gath­ered in one room, and her father point­ed out to her the Mora­vian Roma and spoke of them as being wealthier.

[The sto­ry of Karolí­na Kozáková-Vdolečková in Auschwitz II — Birke­nau will be described in the sec­ond vol­ume of the pub­li­ca­tion, which has not yet been published.] 

[1] Today part of the town of Příbram.

[2] Today part of the town of Příbram.

Karoli­na Kozáková-Vdolečková trained as a print­er. At the age of thir­teen, she met Jaroslav Novot­ný, a boy four years her senior, whom she lat­er mar­ried. Novot­ný came from a fam­i­ly of itin­er­ant enter­tain­ers or ​“khále”.[1] Her son Václav was born to this mar­riage in 1950. With her sec­ond hus­band, Miroslav Kozák, she had a daugh­ter in 1952, a son two years lat­er, and anoth­er son in 1956. From her third mar­riage to Jaroslav Vdoleček, with whom she lived in the fam­i­ly house in Brno, she had also a son, who was born in 1973. 

[1] It is a Romani term for itin­er­ant enter­tain­ers, but it also has a neg­a­tive con­no­ta­tion, reflect­ing the fact that these peo­ple did not know or observe the Romani prin­ci­ples in hygiene and diet. (ed.)