Vlasta Danielová

Vlas­ta Danielová was born in Der­fle. Her father, Emil Kier, mined sand [on the Mora­va Riv­er (ed.)] for sev­er­al years; her moth­er raised and sold poul­try. Vlas­ta had sev­en sib­lings — broth­ers Izidor, Stanislav, Raimund and Jeníček and sis­ters Matyl­da, Vik­to­ra and Mila. The eldest, Izidor, was a trained brick­lay­er, Vlas­ta worked in the brick­yard at Mařat­ice.[1] They lived in a cot­tage and had very good rela­tions with the local inhab­i­tants and the gen­darmes from Kunovice.

[1] It belonged to the com­pa­ny Josef Štan­cl and Son. (ed.)

The fam­i­ly could not imag­ine that they might be sub­ject to sim­i­lar restric­tions as the Jews. Vlasta’s moth­er, a Slo­vak, said that if worse came to worst they would flee to Slo­va­kia, but the father said they had no rea­son to run away as they had not killed any­one. Vlasta’s broth­ers Izidor and Stanislav were soon sent to forced labour – Izidor to Linz, where he could go home every month on leave, and Stanislav to Dres­den.[1] The sur­round­ing Roma began to be tak­en away in 1942, main­ly from Staré Měs­to and most­ly to Hodonín u Kunštá­tu, but the Kiers were still not con­cerned. It was only when the Ger­mans built a shoot­ing range in the neigh­bour­hood that they had to leave their house and build a new one else­where from their own sav­ings. The par­ents nego­ti­at­ed a pass for Izidor to build it; the builder Šup­ka gave them the mate­ri­als. Then [Josef] Štan­cl[2] began to threat­en the fam­i­ly, so they went to work for him, although he did not pay them.

Among the restric­tions against the Roma, Vlas­ta Danielová chiefly men­tioned being banned from going to the cin­e­ma, which she enjoyed. But the cin­e­ma oper­a­tor defied the reg­u­la­tion and car­ried on let­ting her fam­i­ly in. 

In March,[3] the fam­i­ly was ordered by the gen­darmes to pack food for three days and clothes and to come to the pub in Der­fle. About thir­ty peo­ple were gath­ered there, four fam­i­lies. She remem­bered in par­tic­u­lar the Holomeks. Vlasta’s broth­er Izidor was home on leave, and although his par­ents tried to talk him out of it, he said he would go too. They were tak­en by a vehi­cle to the Sokol Hall in Staré Měs­to near Uher­ské Hradiště, where Roma from Hradiště, Veselí nad Moravou, Uher­ské Ostroh and oth­er vil­lages had already assem­bled. Their names were writ­ten down on a list and their fin­ger­prints tak­en. Izidor object­ed to this and was slapped by a police offi­cer, but his moth­er slapped the offi­cer back, and added an extra slap. Gen­darmes from Kunovice, who knew the fam­i­ly well, helped calm the situation.

The next day they were herd­ed into wag­ons at the Staré Měs­to sta­tion. In Ostra­va, the Ger­mans took over the trans­port from the gen­darmes, and the train reached its des­ti­na­tion [Auschwitz II-Birke­nau] after dark. With kicks and curs­es, and with the help of bark­ing dogs they were dri­ven out of the wag­ons and lined up; then they walked to the camp. They were put in a bar­rack where there were only earth floors and where all through the night trans­ports arrived with Roma from Poland, Ger­many and oth­er coun­tries whose lan­guage they did not under­stand. They were in quar­an­tine for four weeks; food was brought to them by Jews, it was bad, and there was lit­tle of it. They had no blan­kets and no toi­let, only bar­rels. Then they were giv­en a [tat­tooed] camp num­ber. Their names ceased to exist, she says, from that moment on it was just ​“Zwölfhun­dert­fün­fund­fierzig”. They were allowed to keep their own clothes, but they were moved into a bar­rack with bru­tal Pol­ish kapos who beat them for any­thing. They had no water and could not wash them­selves; they caught rain­wa­ter in bowls. It was four months before they were able to bathe.

Dis­eases spread in the camp, espe­cial­ly typhus. The blocks at the end of the camp were called the Kranken­bau and that was where they sent the sick. Vlasta’s father died there first, then her eldest sis­ter Matyl­da and her youngest broth­er Jeníček. She her­self was there for a short time, and a Pol­ish doc­tor extract­ed her tooth.[4]

Vlas­ta Danielová had to dig drainage gut­ters, side­walks and the road to the cre­ma­to­ria. Lat­er she worked in the kitchen, where the man­ag­er was a Pole she called ​“Jaša”[5] from War­saw; the food was also giv­en out by a Pole,[6] who took Danielová in hand. For the small chil­dren it was cooked sep­a­rate­ly; semoli­na, cus­tard, or soup. Por­tions were issued for the num­ber of chil­dren in each block, but the kapos and block chiefs took some of it for them­selves. When the food was being served and a Ger­man was not super­vis­ing her,[7] she could give peo­ple extra. She was caught once, but got away with only two slaps.

The broth­ers Izidor[8] and Raimund[9] were then tak­en on a trans­port.[10] Vlas­ta was reunit­ed with Raimund in Auschwitz and was able to give him extra food, but he was soon tak­en away[11] and they did not see each oth­er again until after the war. She was also able to give extra to her friend from Uher­ské Hradiště, Robert Schön, a Jew­ish pris­on­er, to whom she brought food to the wire fence before the trans­port took him away as well; they met in Hradiště after the war.

She recalls that when wash­rooms were built in the camp, the Ger­mans would go to the show­ers to select per­sons suit­able for exper­i­ments. The women were offered release if they had their wombs removed, but no one vol­un­teered.[12]

From the kitchen win­dows one could see the road lead­ing to the cre­ma­to­ri­um and the gas cham­bers. If Blocksperre was announced while Vlas­ta was still work­ing, she could not return to the block, so she saw vehi­cles tak­ing peo­ple to the cre­ma­to­ri­um and return­ing with only their clothes. In the kitchen they also sort­ed the food that was left in the wag­ons from the arriv­ing trans­ports. Some­times they found the valu­ables of the pre­vi­ous own­ers in it. Once, when a bag of gold jew­ellery was dis­cov­ered while jam-mak­ing; it was appro­pri­at­ed by the Ger­man supervisor.

She remem­bered how some Mora­vian Roma escaped and were caught by the Ger­mans, beat­en with whips as exam­ples and final­ly tak­en to an unknown des­ti­na­tion. One of them, who she said came from Petrov, was shot and car­ried naked from block to block; every­one had to look at him and say whether they knew him. No one came for­ward, even his wife denied she knew him out of fear.[13]

She describes how the kapos on the block were Ger­man Roma, a mar­ried cou­ple with two chil­dren, who dis­played Hitler’s por­trait.[14] She also recalls Josef Men­gele, who often drove away from the block with two ten-year-old boys, twins, and brought them back by car, but then one time he did not bring them back.

Vlas­ta Danielová described the most ter­ri­ble moment in the camp as the evening when the fam­i­lies were ordered to assem­ble. Some of the pris­on­ers were tak­en away then, but the Kier fam­i­ly was not select­ed.[15]

Vlas­ta Danielová was then placed on a trans­port to Ravens­brück.[16] Like the oth­er women, she was giv­en a new prison num­ber and a black tri­an­gle-shaped patch, which des­ig­nat­ed pros­ti­tutes and work shun­ners. She recalled a bru­tal Russ­ian war­den called Masha and one of the most rig­or­ous body search­es. She was trans­ferred from Ravens­brück to Svata­va and then to Kraslice, where they had turned the for­mer tex­tile fac­to­ry into an arms fac­to­ry. She worked in shifts, had bet­ter accom­mo­da­tion, and could wash at any time. Then, when the Amer­i­cans bombed Kraslice and the fac­to­ry, the Ger­mans lined them up and took them on a gru­elling death march. Near Karlovy Vary, Vlas­ta Danielová and sev­er­al women were released. The trains were return­ing and at the sta­tion in Rakovník they were approached by Josef Hauer from the vil­lage of Horní Hradiště, who had a wife and chil­dren in the con­cen­tra­tion camp. He let them stay there with him for about three weeks before they could go home safe­ly to Moravia.

[1] This hap­pened on 7 Novem­ber 1941, when 38 Roma were deployed by the Uher­ské Hradiště branch of the Labour Office to work in the Reich. (ed.)

[2] In 1941 – 1943 Štan­cl was the may­or of the town; in addi­tion to the phar­ma­cy and brick­yard, he also owned fields. (ed.)

[3] Exact date not given.

[4] The den­tist, him­self a pris­on­er, served in Block 28 and is men­tioned in L. Adels­berg­er, Ein Tat­sachen­bericht, Berlin 1956, pp. 79 – 81. (ed.)

[5] Jan Bromil­s­ki, born 24 Decem­ber 1904, Medy­ka. (ed.)

[6] Name not given.

[7] The kitchen was super­vised by SS-Hauptschar­führer Wil­helm Händler. (ed.)

[8] Born 1919.

[9] Born 1921.

[10] Trans­port of 24 May 1944 to the con­cen­tra­tion camp at Flossen­bürg. (ed.)

[11] Trans­port of 2 August 1944 to Buchen­wald con­cen­tra­tion camp. (ed.)

[12] See the records of the search­es at the SS-Hygien­is­ch­er Insti­tut, Archi­wum Panst­wowego Muzeum, Auschwitz-Birke­nau, D‑SS Hyg. Inst.

[13] It hap­pened on May 7, 1943, when Jaromír Daniel, born 1918 in Jalubí, Jan Daniel, born 1915 in Hodonín, Antonín Holomek, born 1909 in Milokošt’, Štěpán Holomek, born 1908 in Kyjov, and Vin­cenc Vrba, born 1903 in Zálužany, escaped. The first four were caught on the same day, Vin­cenc Vrba after sev­en days. They were exe­cut­ed on 22 May 1943. (ed.)

[14] He was a wealthy Roma from Leipzig and one of the old Nazi Par­ty mem­bers; see R. Höss and P. Broad: Oswiec­im w oczach SS, Katovice 1985, pp. 56 and 165.

[15] One evening after 25 May 1943, 971 Pol­ish Roma from Bia­lystok and 76 Aus­tri­an Roma were tak­en to the gas cham­bers because of symp­toms of typhus. (ed.)

[16] She arrived there on August 3, 1944. (ed.)

Vlas­ta Danielová arrived home on 30 May. She found the house dam­aged. Lat­er, the only ones who returned from the con­cen­tra­tion camps were Vik­to­ra, not yet six­teen years old, eigh­teen-year-old Raimund, who died of tuber­cu­lo­sis in 1949, and Stanislav from Dres­den, who soon had to go for mil­i­tary ser­vice; they nev­er saw their moth­er, Mila, the youngest, or Izidor again. They had a hard time mak­ing a liv­ing and received no sup­port, not even from the Nation­al Com­mit­tee (local authority).