Zdeněk Daňhel

The Daňhel fam­i­ly lived in a brick-built house in Bílovice. Zdeněk’s moth­er Marie, née Murko­va, came from Bojkovice and died in 1934; his father Jiří worked as a labour­er. They had four sons and a daugh­ter. Zdeněk Daňhel’s grand­fa­ther was a black­smith. Zdeněk Daňhel worked for the builder Antonín Žuje until his arrest, and also for the firm that built the local dairy.

The first fam­i­ly mem­ber to be per­se­cut­ed was the eldest broth­er Antonín, who was deport­ed to the dis­ci­pli­nary labour camp in Hodonín. Then his uncle[1] was tak­en direct­ly to the con­cen­tra­tion camp in Auschwitz, and then Zdeněk Daňhel’s father and sis­ter were impris­oned in the gyp­sy camp in Hodonín.

At the begin­ning of 1943, gen­darmes came to the Daňhel fam­i­ly and told them that the remain­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers would also be tak­en away. The arrest and sub­se­quent reg­is­tra­tion of the fam­i­ly was car­ried out by the local author­i­ty head­ed by the may­or, and the Daňhel fam­i­ly was fin­ger­print­ed and pho­tographed. They were then tak­en to a fenced-in Sokolov­na sports hall in Staré Měs­to near Uher­ské Hradiště, where Roma fam­i­lies from the sur­round­ing vil­lages were con­cen­trat­ed. After three or four days, the gen­darmes took them to the sta­tion and loaded them onto a train, with between sev­en­ty and a hun­dred peo­ple in each car­riage. They treat­ed them like cat­tle, shout­ed at them and beat them, and gave them noth­ing to eat or drink. The first stop was in Ostra­va, where Ger­man sol­diers with dogs took over the trans­port. They arrived in Auschwitz at around ten o’clock in the evening. They were forced out of the wag­ons, the guards lined them up, and then they walked for over an hour to the camp [Auschwitz II — Birke­nau exter­mi­na­tion camp].[2] They spent the night in large wood­en build­ing, and the next day they were sort­ed into oth­er blocks, which had bunk beds and a brick flue run­ning through the entire build­ing. On about the third day they were shaved to the skin, and after about a fort­night they were tat­tooed. At first they were left to starve, and it was four or five days before the chil­dren get food. The block guards were Ger­man, and the kapos were mur­der­ers [con­vict­ed crim­i­nals] and wore a green tri­an­gle. The pris­on­ers were count­ed repeat­ed­ly, maybe five times a day. The roll calls some­times last­ed up to four hours, and even those who were sick had to take part. There were no blan­kets to sleep under, the toi­lets were inside the blocks, and the com­mon toi­let was about 40 metres long and three metres deep, and very dan­ger­ous. They were giv­en soup and tea to eat and drink, but not reg­u­lar­ly. There were pota­toes and beets in the soup, the tea was of poor qual­i­ty. They had no access to water, so they went secret­ly to the well to draw water in ves­sels low­ered on a string; they were not allowed to do this because the water was con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed. Typhus and skin dis­eases, espe­cial­ly sca­bies, were ram­pant in the camp, and young chil­dren also suf­fered from oth­er ill­ness­es caused by the filth and lack of food. Dozens of peo­ple died every day, main­ly chil­dren and old peo­ple. Wash­ing clothes was for­bid­den, but wash­ing was done secret­ly for small chil­dren. Fam­i­lies lived togeth­er in Birkenau.

Healthy young peo­ple were put to work dig­ging ditch­es, they dragged stones by hand, and worked up to twelve hours a day. They were paid noth­ing for their work, not even any sup­ple­ments to their rations. 

After they had been in Birke­nau aprox­i­mate­ly a month, a selec­tion was made from the young and healthy pris­on­ers, and Zdeněk Daňhel, togeth­er with his broth­ers Antonín and Josef, were sent to the main camp in Auschwitz; his broth­er Rudolf was lat­er tak­en to work else­where, in the vil­lage of Rajsko. The Ger­mans trans­port­ed sev­er­al hun­dred peo­ple from Birke­nau to the main camp at Auschwitz. Appar­ent­ly the camp made a dif­fer­ent impres­sion upon him, it was more like a mil­i­tary bar­racks. Young peo­ple up to the age of eigh­teen were put in one of the blocks and went to a brick­lay­ing school where they learned how to make bricks. At the time, Dah­nel was six­teen and was assigned to work teams that worked out­side the camp; where shifts last­ed up to ten hours. The pris­on­ers had bet­ter con­di­tions in the main camp, but the régime was stricter. Roll calls last­ed many hours, the worst of which was in win­ter, when many died of hunger and cold, and some from beat­ings. Pris­on­ers who tried to escape were torn apart by dogs and their remains dis­played at the main gate as a warning.

Zdeněk Daňhel worked about 120 to 150 metres from the cre­ma­to­ri­um, so he saw the trans­ports arriv­ing and how the guards decid­ed who would go straight to the gas cham­ber and who would not; the trans­ports arrived two or three times a week. He also often saw the flames from the cre­ma­to­ria as they whipped up over the chim­neys. One day they all had to watch the exe­cu­tion of about twelve or thir­teen pris­on­ers by hang­ing, which last­ed from four in the after­noon until morning.

The Roma in the camp social­ized with pris­on­ers of oth­er nation­al­i­ties, but only in secret. There were var­i­ous ways to get food and cig­a­rettes; some pris­on­ers had musi­cal instru­ments and played for oth­ers, and there was even a camp band with about 60 musi­cians who played on the way to and from work. If the guards were in the mood, they also organ­ised con­certs. Cards were played in secret because card play­ing was severe­ly pun­ished, some­times even by death.

In 1944, Zdeněk Daňhel and his broth­ers Antonín and Josef were trans­port­ed to Buchen­wald con­cen­tra­tion camp.[3] His cousin and oth­er rel­a­tives went else­where.[4] Com­pared with Auschwitz, he found Buchen­wald beau­ti­ful, with bet­ter quar­ters and nicer sur­round­ings. After a three-week quar­an­tine, he was moved to Dora camp for cir­ca 60,000 pris­on­ers, which was still being built at that time; his broth­ers were tak­en to Ell­rich and then to Harzun­gen. After a while his broth­er Rudolf was also trans­port­ed from Auschwitz to Buchen­wald and then to Dora, How­ev­er, Daňhel only saw him, they did not speak. Rudolf was even­tu­al­ly tak­en to Ell­rich as well. In Dora, Zdeněk Daňhel was assigned to var­i­ous jobs, such as in the tun­nels.[5] He was not much over six­teen years old, but he had to work as much as the adults, and had no exemp­tions. After six months he was trans­ferred to Harzun­gen, where it was the same — stren­u­ous work in the tun­nels in shifts, includ­ing night shifts, walk­ing about four kilo­me­tres to work, and up to twen­ty peo­ple a day dying of hunger. After a while he was trans­ferred to Ell­rich, where his broth­ers were, but after a month he was returned to Harzung. They still saw each oth­er occa­sion­al­ly, but after the begin­ning of 1945 they did not see each oth­er again until they were at home after the liberation.

In approx­i­mate­ly Feb­ru­ary 1945, the régime in the camp began to tight­en. Around March 13, they were return­ing from work and shout­ing and shoot­ing could be heard from the camp. Expe­ri­enced pris­on­ers guessed that they were get­ting ready to close down the camp. At 3.00 p.m. the guards ordered them to be quick and pre­pare for a march. No one knew what to do: Daňhel put on all his clothes, then they were giv­en soup, but there was chaos, so he was giv­en it twice, and bread as well, while oth­ers got noth­ing. At 5.00 p.m. they set off, the guards herd­ing them out of the vil­lage through the woods and along dirt tracks. There had been about three thou­sand of them, but many pris­on­ers had been shot by the SS and oth­ers were unable to stand the hunger and beat­ings, so he esti­mat­ed that there were now about eight hun­dred left. Twice or three times they were giv­en six or eight pota­toes, so they ate what­ev­er they found along the way or in the woods. After a fort­night they came to a small town whose name he can­not remem­ber; there was a rail­way sta­tion with freight wag­ons that they were shut into, and when some Amer­i­can planes came over and began to bomb the sta­tion, it took some time before they were able to open the wag­ons and escape. There were wound­ed among the pris­on­ers, but no one died. The Ger­mans then herd­ed them back into the wag­ons, and Dan­hel saw they had shot his friend, a Sovi­et cit­i­zen, along with sev­er­al oth­er pris­on­ers.[6]

They were then led for about anoth­er eight days to an unknown loca­tion. They had no food, just once they were giv­en beet soup and pota­toes. Final­ly they reached a small camp, whose name he does not remem­ber and which had been evac­u­at­ed; they stayed overnight and were giv­en soup. The next day they went on; the guards kept beat­ing and kick­ing them. Zdeněk Daňhel was so exhaust­ed that he sat down in a ditch and did not care what hap­pened to him. Nobody took any notice until two hours lat­er, when a trac­tor full of SS offi­cers arrived and want­ed to shoot him. He told them that he was one of the first of hun­dreds of pris­on­ers, that oth­ers were fol­low­ing him and the com­man­der of the unit had allowed him to go ahead. They believed him and took him on the trac­tor. After about forty kilo­me­tres they dropped him off and told him to report a lit­tle fur­ther on, where he saw many pris­on­ers of var­i­ous nation­al­i­ties, includ­ing civil­ians such as Poles. He was giv­en food and told that he was free. It was around 10 April 1945.

The next day the Amer­i­can sol­diers came and lib­er­at­ed them. They were about 10 kilo­me­tres from the town of ​“Schon­berg”.[7] It was like a rebirth. He got every­thing he want­ed from the Amer­i­cans, includ­ing choco­lates and cig­a­rettes. He had enough of every­thing, and he had free­dom, but he did­n’t know what he should do. About four weeks lat­er he was tak­en to ​“Strass­furt”,[8] where he wait­ed to be trans­port­ed home with about four thou­sand pris­on­ers and peo­ple tak­en to Ger­many to work. In the mean­time, Sovi­et and Eng­lish sol­diers arrived, alter­nat­ing every two weeks, and then a mil­i­tary detach­ment from Czecho­slo­va­kia arrived to arrange the return of the Czechoslo­vak citizens.

At the end of the war, the remain­ing Roma pris­on­ers in Auschwitz were mur­dered — among them Daňhel’s father, uncle and oth­er relations.

[1] Name not given.

[2] The trans­port of 8 March 1943 deport­ed 498 men, women and chil­dren from the Pro­tec­torate. (ed.)

[3] 918 pris­on­ers were trans­port­ed to Buchen­wald con­cen­tra­tion camp on 2 August 1944. (ed.)

[4] Not stat­ed where.

[5] Two under­ground tun­nels with 46 con­nect­ing tun­nels were then used for the pro­duc­tion of V2 rockets.

[6] Rea­son not given.

[7] Prob­a­bly Schön­berg, now part of the town of See­hausen in Sax­ony-Anhalt, about 200 kilo­me­tres from Camp Dora.

[8] Prob­a­bly Stass­furt in Sax­ony-Anhalt, where there was a branch of the Buchen­wald camp.

Daňhel went home at the end of July via Děčin, where they reg­is­tered him and gave him clothes and food. The next day he con­tin­ued to Náchod, where he was giv­en pro­vi­sion­al doc­u­ments and 560 crowns. The rest of the jour­ney he had to man­age on his own. At home he was reunit­ed with all his broth­ers and his cousin.