Racial Persecution

In the occupied borderlands, attacks on synagogues and Jewish shops occurred during the so-called Night of Broken Glass of November 9 to 10, 1938. After the occupation, Jewish residents were excluded from public life and their property was confiscated. On October 18, 1939, the first ever transport of men of Jewish origin left for Nisko nad Sanem. A so-called Judenreservat was to be established in eastern Poland, where the entire Jewish population was to be evicted. However, this idea was abandoned and after the Wannsee Conference held on January 20, 1942, systematic transports of Jews and Roma to extermination camps began. The Roma population was interned in camps in Lety and Hodonín near Kunštát. Michal Salomonovič, born on October 6, 1933, in Ostrava, was one of the few survivors. His father was in the first transport of European Jews to Nisko nad Sanem, and, after his return, the whole family was included in transport E, which left Prague for Lodz on November 3, 1941. From there, the family was later transported to Auschwitz and then to the Stuthoff concentration camp, where the father was murdered. Michal, his mother and brother, because they were able to work, were transported to Dresden, where Michal worked in an ammunition factory. In February 1945, they were included in the Death March and were liberated by the Americans near Domažlice. The first photo shows Michal Salomonovič in 1940, the second in 2011 at the ammunition factory in Dresden.