Food for the Prisoners of Terezín

Available in: English | Česky | Deutsch

During the Second World War, transports of prisoners from a nearby Terezín ghetto were regularly passing through what is currently known as Masarykova Street in Bohušovice. In the place where Masarykova Street meets Družstevní Street, children holding bags full of food used to mingle with the marching prisoners. They were hiding between the prisoners and giving them food. This happened regularly when the transport was accompanied by Czech policemen because a group of local inhabitants was secretly informed about the movements of the transports. But once it went wrong. Taťána Bubníková, one of the children that used to mingle with the prisoners, recalls: “The Germans somehow found out what were doing, and they sent German guards instead of the Czech ones. We did not know that, and we mingled with the transport as usual. My mother was standing nearby with some more bags with food, and when she handed them over to us, we were arrested. They were all armed and they took us to the train station. There, they lined us up by the wall and wanted to shoot us.” An interrogation and explanation followed. Taťána Bubníková adds: “I have no idea how my mother managed to explain that, but in the end they let us go.”

Gallery (4)

Hodnocení

Hodnotilo 0 lidí

Abyste mohli hodnotit musíte se přihlásit!

Routes

Not a part of any route.

Add to user route

Comments

No comments yet.

Insert comment

Taťána Bubníková, neé Kalinová

Taťána Bubníková, maiden name Kalinová, was born in 1931 in Prague, she grew up in Bohušovice nad Ohří. Her father was a tailor, her mother a couturier. The occupation found her in the primary school. As an eleven-year-old girl she used to go to Terezín with food for the transported and used to carry letters from there with information for the families of the transported. These illegal activities were practiced also by both her parents, especially her mother (in 1940 and 1943 she gave birth to two more boys!). In 1945, Taťána went to the business school in Litoměřice. As a daughter of a trader she had problems to find work. In 1953, she married Bohuslav Bubník. She moved to Mělník and started to work in the Vitana company. After the maternity leave she entered the accountant position in a state farm. To get a kindergarten place for her two children, she signed the membership in the Czechoslovak Women’s Federation. In 1960, she started to work at the district agriculture authority in the financial department, and later in the school department. She never reached the leader position, due to the fact that she refused to enter the Czechoslovak Communist Party. She retired in 1986. After the Velvet Revolution, she and her husband joined the efforts to renew the activity of the physical training institution Sokol and she has remained active in it ever since.

More info

Bohušovice nad Ohří

Available in: English | Česky | Deutsch

Bohušovice nad Ohří is a town located predominantly on the left bank of the Eger River (Ohře), about 5 km south of Litoměřice, in the vicinity of Theresienstadt (Terezín). A major incentive for the development of the settlement was the construction of a railway from Prague to Dresden (the local section of it was opened in 1850). Town status was granted to Bohušovice for the first time in 1920, but it was taken away by the Nazis during WWII. The town only regained its status on 6 October, 1998. During the war – before the Nazis built an extension of the railway leading directly to Theresienstadt – incoming Jews had to march in rows to the nearby Theresienstadt ghetto through the town of Bohušovice. For the elderly and the sick the march, with heavy backpacks and suitcases, was devastating. Although many of them were still in possession of their food supplies at this stage, they were mostly lacking drinking water according to the testimony of many witnesses. The local population looked on as the Jews marched to Theresienstadt through their town - some with contempt and indignation, others shocked at the cruelty of the guards. Some inhabitants of the town would pass the Jews water at an unnoticed moment or take and pass on their messages, such as the local train-station employee Karel Košvanec.

On this place

A railway worker who helped Jews survive in the ghetto

Eva Roubíčková

Food for the Prisoners of Terezín

Taťána Bubníková, neé Kalinová