Tomáš Šubrt

There was typhoid fever in [the so-called gyp­sy camp in] Hodonín, so Tomáš Šubrt, his wife Filom­e­na and their chil­dren Jaroslav and Kvě­tosla­va were deport­ed from Brno[1] to Auschwitz.[2] With them in the trans­port were Tomáš Šubrt’s moth­er, his father-in-law and moth­er-in-law, three broth­ers and their twelve chil­dren, a sis­ter and broth­er-in-law with five of their own chil­dren and about twelve oth­er chil­dren and also a sis­ter from Kyjov, and the Homol­ka fam­i­ly with their five chil­dren and two grand­chil­dren. They were to take food and clothes only for two days; they had been told in Brno that every­thing else would be pro­vid­ed for them, and that they would have a home in Auschwitz. They were not giv­en any­thing for the jour­ney, nei­ther food nor drink, but the depor­tees on this trans­port were allowed to keep their belong­ings. Thus they had, in addi­tion to food, clothes and shoes which they exchanged with the Poles for food. 

The jour­ney in closed freight cars took approx­i­mate­ly twelve hours. The trans­port was escort­ed to the bor­der by Czech police offi­cers, then tak­en over by the Ger­mans. On arrival, the train stopped in a sid­ing on a high embank­ment down which they were thrown to emp­ty the train quick­ly. The chil­dren cried, and one of them was killed by the Ger­mans.[3] They lined up five-abreast and walked three kilo­me­tres to Birke­nau.[4] A prison band played at the camp gate, and they were imme­di­ate­ly tak­en aback by the lev­el of bes­tial­i­ty when they saw the bod­ies of mur­dered pris­on­ers, such as a man with a pick­axe in his head and a pris­on­er who had been shot.

Tomáš Šubrt and his fam­i­ly were in Block 9. On the very first evening, the Ger­mans killed 19-year-old Jaroslav Holomek from Sva­to­bořice. He went out around nine o’clock, but then he could­n’t find his way among the blocks, and when he start­ed run­ning they shot him. The patrol then came to their block and told them that if they did not hand over the boy’s body, they would shoot them all. Tomáš Šubrt said they were intend­ing not to hand him over and pre­pare him for his last jour­ney themselves.

It was a fam­i­ly camp where men, women and chil­dren were togeth­er. First they all had their hair cut off and then they were tat­tooed with [prison] num­bers on their fore­arms. They were giv­en food twice a day, tea in the morn­ing, and beets at noon. The chil­dren’s food was a lit­tle bet­ter. They were allowed to keep their civil­ian clothes, but they were vis­i­bly marked with red cross­es every­where. After about nine months, they had torn them off and went half-naked and bare­foot, so then they were giv­en civil­ian clothes of the pris­on­ers from the new trans­ports with markings.

They had roll call twice a day, and even the chil­dren had to stand for it. If a pris­on­er was miss­ing, they would stand there until dawn. Tomáš Šubrt recalled the attempts of Czech pris­on­ers to escape. The first were a group of six escapees, includ­ing his sis­ter’s son from Hodonín and two broth­ers from the Holomek fam­i­ly. After their cap­ture, they were tak­en to a camp where they were tor­tured and hanged, and their bod­ies were left hang­ing as a warn­ing to oth­ers; their fam­i­ly mem­bers were beat­en.[5]

The pris­on­ers had to work from 6:30 to 3:30 p.m. Every­one in Tomáš Šubrt’s fam­i­ly worked, both inside and out­side the camp. He men­tioned Vojtěch and Maria Šubrt, who were killed by the Ger­mans while at work; their six chil­dren also died. Tomáš Šubrt said they actu­al­ly thought about death all the time; they most­ly talked about what would hap­pen to them when it was their turn to go to the gas cham­bers. Once, dur­ing the Blocksperre, the Ger­mans took the Pol­ish Roma from Blocks 6 and 8 away in vehi­cles. They claimed they were tak­ing them home, but in the morn­ing it turned out that they had been gassed.[6]

Tomáš Šubrt con­sid­ers the most hor­ri­ble expe­ri­ence was when pris­on­ers from a new­ly-arrived trans­port were tak­en by the Ger­mans straight to the gas cham­ber. They tried to take the chil­dren away from their moth­ers, but the moth­ers clasped them to them­selves and went to their deaths with the children.

At the end of August [1944] he was select­ed for trans­port and passed through the camps of Buchen­wald, Dora, Ell­rich, Harzun­gen and Nord­hausen, where he was lib­er­at­ed by the Amer­i­can army in mid-April 1945.[7] A mass trans­port of non-Romani pris­on­ers, orga­nized by the Repa­tri­a­tion Com­mis­sion, returned to Brno via Prague on 19 July 1945. He con­clud­ed his nar­ra­tive by stat­ing that none of his fam­i­ly sur­vived Auschwitz.

[1] Trans­port of 19 March 1943. (ed.)

[2] Auschwitz II-Birke­nau con­cen­tra­tion camp.

[3] It is not clear whether a child or an adult fam­i­ly member.

[4] Auschwitz II-Birke­nau, where there was a so-called fam­i­ly gyp­sy camp.

[5] On 7 May 1943, Jaromír Daniel, born 1918 in Jalubí; Jan Daniel, born 1915 in Hodonín; Antonín Holomek, born 1909 in Milokošt’; Štěpán Holomek, born 1905 in Kyjov, Stanislav Holomek, born 1908 in Kyjov, and Vin­cenc Vrba, born 1903 in Zálužany escaped. The first five fugi­tives were caught on the same day, Vin­cenc Vrba on 14 May 1943. All of them were exe­cut­ed on 22 May 1943. (ed.)

[6] This was one of the mass mur­ders of Pol­ish Roma, but the des­ig­na­tion of the blocks giv­en by the sur­vivor (ed.) does not correspond.

[7] Accord­ing to cor­rob­o­ra­tion from the Inter­na­tion­al Cen­tre for Nazi Per­se­cu­tion in Bad Arolsen, he was reg­is­tered in Buchen­wald from 3 August 1944, in Dora from 17 August 1944 and in Mit­tel­bau I near Nord­hausen from 1 Novem­ber 1944. The lat­ter con­cen­tra­tion camp was lib­er­at­ed on 11 April 1945. (ed.)