Tomáš Holomek

Tomáš Holomek grew up in squalid con­di­tions in a Romani set­tle­ment between Sva­to­bořice and Kyjov. His father was a labour­er, and nei­ther his par­ents nor his five broth­ers could read or write. When he was 11 years old, they moved from a shack in the set­tle­ment, where he said they lived with rats, to a house in Sva­to­bořice where he start­ed school. At first he had prob­lems there – the chil­dren made fun of him for being a gyp­sy, and he was five years old­er than the rest of his class­mates. In his third year, how­ev­er, on the rec­om­men­da­tion of his teacher, he had already passed the entrance exam­i­na­tion to the gym­na­si­um in Kyjov, where his class­mates, most­ly from rich fam­i­lies, didn’t accept him until he was in the fifth year. Nev­er­the­less, he stud­ied with dis­tinc­tion; his main incen­tive was the knowl­edge that his par­ents had to go with­out in order for him to go to school. After grad­u­a­tion, he chose to study law because he did not have to attend lec­tures and could earn extra mon­ey from coaching.

When the coun­try was occu­pied, Tomáš Holomek was liv­ing in the vil­lage of Milo­tice in the Hodonín dis­trict. At that time he was already mar­ried and had a son and a daugh­ter. He was unable to earn a liv­ing as a lawyer, so he worked in the mines oper­at­ing a hon­ka, as the tubs that car­ried the coal were called. The work was phys­i­cal­ly extreme­ly stren­u­ous. After six months he got a job in an office in the glass­works in Kyjov, to which he com­mut­ed by bicycle.

His par­ents were deport­ed from Sva­to­bořice in March[1] and four­teen days lat­er he received a telegram at work from a Mr Mareš[2] from the crim­i­nal police at Bar­tolomějská [in Prague], with whom he was acquaint­ed from his stud­ies at the Fac­ul­ty of Arts. The text read: ​“Things are hot­ting up for you! Yours, Dr. Good.” He imme­di­ate­ly real­ized what was hap­pen­ing and went home to Milo­tice, where he appealed for help to his son Kar­lik’s teacher, Mr. Hamernik,[3] and then to Count Seil­er, the head of the Ober­lan­drat in Olo­mouc, but both turned him down. So the fam­i­ly packed their belong­ings and, with their bun­dles on their backs, left on foot for the vil­lage of Dubňany, about ten kilo­me­tres away, where his wife’s sis­ter lived (Holomek’s wife was not a Roma). Tomáš Holomek was in con­tact with the post­mas­ter from Milo­tice, and when he received word from him that the Gestapo was look­ing for him, he fled along the smug­gling trail between Hodonín and the vil­lage of Holíč in Slo­va­kia so as not to endan­ger his rel­a­tives in Dubňany. He hid main­ly in Roma set­tle­ments or in the forests, and often did not eat for three or four days. He suf­fered three rup­tured duo­de­nal ulcers, and nat­u­ral­ly could not see a doc­tor. He remem­bered a raid by Ger­man sol­diers near the vil­lages of Gel­ni­ca and Marge­cany, where he was hid­ing in a set­tle­ment in the attic of a Roma fam­i­ly. The Rus­sians dropped para­troop­ers in the area and the Ger­man sol­diers were search­ing for them, but Tomáš Holomek man­aged to escape from the encir­cled set­tle­ment into the for­est. He empha­sis­es the sol­i­dar­i­ty that pre­vailed among the Roma. Not only did they not turn him in, but they always pro­vid­ed him with food and lodg­ing. Accord­ing to him, in Slo­va­kia the per­se­cu­tion of Roma was not as severe as in Bohemia and Moravia.

[1] Year not given.

[2] First name not given.

[3] First name not given.

After the war, he learned that his par­ents and all his broth­ers had per­ished in Auschwitz. At first he was con­va­lesc­ing in a hos­pi­tal in Uher­ské Hradiště, and when he returned to Milo­tice in June, he was appoint­ed com­mis­sar there. On his return, he saved Hamernik, the teacher, from being lynched by the local peo­ple who were tak­ing revenge on him for denounc­ing them. When Hamernik thanked him, he told him that he should be tried in a court of law, not by self-appoint­ed judges, and had him tak­en to Kyjov, where the peo­ple’s court sen­tenced him to death. Holomek also men­tions the fate of Count Seil­er, whose prop­er­ty was con­fis­cat­ed so that he end­ed up in the poor­house; after six months, how­ev­er, he left for Aus­tria, where he had relatives.

Tomáš Holomek was trans­ferred from the local nation­al com­mit­tee to the region­al com­mit­tee, and in 1949 was approached by [Josef] Korčák with an offer to join the army. Holomek said that he laughed at him at first, but then the Par­ty told him to do it, so he worked as a mil­i­tary pros­e­cu­tor in Kroměříž until his retirement.

“Wait, I’ll sing you my father’s song”, Tomáš Holomek said at the end, and he sang in Romani a song whose lyrics in Czech trans­la­tion begin ​“Run, boy, run, the gen­darmes are com­ing and they’re car­ry­ing chains…” By the last verse he was over­come with emo­tion and the record­ing ends.