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.