Karel Vrba

Karel Vrba was one of five children born to Vojtěch Vrba, a labourer from Horní Pěna, and Karolína, née Havlíčka, originally from a family of millers at Koněprusy near Beroun. He said his parents were not Roma; his father was a basket weaver at Lomnice.[1]

Karel Vrba grew up at Plavsko, near Stráž nad Nežárkou, where he attended school and then joined the army. When he returned to civilian life at a time of great unemployment, he had to work for farmers in return for food.

[1] Probably Lomnice nad Lužnicí.

He married Maria, née Studená, and in 1940 they had a son and later a daughter.

In 1940 Vrba was conscripted for forced labour in a peat block factory at Příbraz. However, his two brothers refused to work for the Nazis, so as punishment they were taken to Auschwitz, where they perished.

From August 1942, Karel Vrba and his family were imprisoned in the camp at Lety near Písek. They could have escaped in time, as they knew they would be taken away, but they had nowhere to go, and they would have risked the extermination of their entire family. Nevertheless, they have no idea how they were traced, as their family is said not to have been listed in any registers. According to Vrba, the village of Plavsko was to blame. When the Protectorate gendarmes eventually came for them, the Vrba family took only the blankets and clothes they were wearing at the time; everything else was left at home.

After arriving at the camp, they had to hand over at the warehouse all the things they had brought with them. Their property was allowed to rot, and later, when the typhus epidemic struck the camp, it was burned. The newly arrived prisoners were separated into men, women and children. They were given clothes and shoes from the former Czechoslovak army that had been dyed black.

There were only two bunk beds on the block, but there were eight or even ten people living there. Gradually, however, the prisoners were taken to Auschwitz, and only those who were known to be going home stayed on the block, because they did not belong there, Vrba said. They were guarded by Czech Protectorate gendarmes, but he said he couldn’t complain about them; they were kind and didn’t beat anyone. He said that at Lety, there were not even kapos, familiar from the concentration camps.

Every morning the prisoners were driven outside for roll call and they had to exercise. They had no place to wash beforehand: there was no washroom or mains water in the camp, just a single trough, to which water was carried by hand. He also said they got typhus because of poor hygiene.

The food was also insufficient; there was nothing to cook from – the commandant [Josef] Janovský (“he was nasty”) – took all the food to Prague for Christmas, but later [1] he was replaced by someone from Moravia,[2] who brought back the stolen provisions and distributed them to the children. Relatives came with food parcels for the prisoners, but they were not allowed in. They also came to see Vrba – he had an aunt and uncle with a family outside – but they did not get to see each other.

Prisoners routinely went to work. Since Vrba could read and write, he was first assigned to the kitchen, and then to the shoemaker’s workshop. While he was still working in the kitchen, he helped the Roma who were being transported to Auschwitz in Poland. They didn’t know what was in store for them. But Vrba knew their fate from the gendarmes. So he always provided them with at least one loaf of bread for four people and some fat from the kitchen for the journey. His work in the kitchen ensured that he did not suffer from hunger, but he said it was impossible to bring something out for his family who were suffering from hunger and illness. When Vrba himself fell ill with typhus and was convulsed with fever, his wife begged for medicine, so that Doctor [Michael] Bohin eventually came and saved Vrba. Vrba said there was nothing the doctor would not do for the people. Vrba’s father died of typhus in the camp.

Camp life was hard for the children. There was nothing for them to do but play in the yard, but during the winter they had to freeze in their quarters. His wife went to work and the children were looked after by another woman; their three-year-old daughter was killed when she fell from a high bed.[3] She was buried at the nearby Mirovice cemetery without Vrba seeing her beforehand. Later, however, children who died of malnutrition were taken to the forest to be buried. They were first collected on wagons in which other Roma had arrived at the camp. When the typhus epidemic ended,[4] the wagons were burned.

A son was born to the Vrbas in the camp.[5] In May 1943, when most of the Roma from the camp were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, they were released from the camp on the grounds that they were not so-called Gypsies. When they returned home, they said there was nothing left. Everything was destroyed.

[1] From January 1943. (ed.)

[2] Chief administrative official Štěpán Blahynka, from March 1943 then office assistant František Havelka. (ed.)

[3] In August 1942, less than three weeks after their arrival in the camp. (ed.)

[4] At the time when the camp was being disbanded after the deportation of most of the prisoners. (ed.)

[5] In February 1943.