TOMAS KULKA (From “YOUTH”)
TOMÁŠ KULKA (1934–1942)
Imagine being a small child when the war began. By the time the Holocaust ended, 1.5 million Jewish children and teens were dead. In the midst of all this, a small seven year-old boy was caught in the fire. A little Czech boy who was not a threat to society and who only wanted to play with his stuffed animals.
Apparently, from the research that has been done, the Kulka’s originated in Olomouc before they moved. Tomas’s father, Robert, who was born on August 30, 1890 in Olomouc, was a businessman. He was the youngest of three children. The Kulkas were integrated into society in Olomouc. The Czech Jews thrived with businesses and trade. Olomouc was a town that was bustling with opportunities and for Robert, saw it as just that. After he completed school, in 1909 he attended business school. His goals were to run a successful business. He went to school in Olomouc. Trying to find which school in Olomouc he went to was a little tricky. In the search for business schools, there were a few, but none had the “records’’ option. In between that time, he graduated and ran a business. The kind of business he ran was a family business.
Robert was very ambitious, even from when he was young. He was also a man who wanted to have a family. In 1933, he met a woman named Elsa Eliska Skutezka. The Skutezka’s were a semi-religious family.
Elsa, Tomas’s mother, was from Brno (that’s where Kurt Wolf went to medical school). Her birthday was April 14, 1902, but on another website that was found, it stated her birthday was on March 23, 1902. It is not clear what her birthday was. She was the oldest of three children. She was beautiful and she was well educated. In 1920, when she was eighteen years old, she graduated from a Germanic-language secondary school. She was Czech, but she was also a talented linguist and from what was recorded, she knew both Czech, Hebrew and German. She was married to man named Sigfried Roth He was born on March 9, 1889. She moved to Bratislava to be with her husband. But the marriage was not a success, and the two divorced. She moved back to Brno where she opened a millinery business. On May 24, 1933, she married Robert Kulka and the two moved to Olomouc. In Olomouc, they were successful and they had hoped to expand their family. Robert was twelve years Elsa’s senior . When they were married, Robert was forty-three and Elsa was thirty- one. They were considered “old” when they got married, but in today’s age, people get married at all different ages.
With Elsa wanting a child, they were able to have their joy, a year and a day after their first anniversary of marriage.
According to Veronika Wihlodova, she said this about Elsa :
“Elsa Skutezká was born on April 14, 1902 in Brno as the daughter of Eduard Skutezký, a hauler in Brno, and Emmy Skutezká, neé Schwarz. She had brother Robert, born 1903, who was a lawyer and in the years 1941–1945 fought in the Czechoslovak foreign army, and sister Anna, born 1905. The family lived in Brno, Přadlácká street 9. On August 31, 1924, Elsa Skutezká married in Brno Mr. Siegfried (Vítězslav) Roth, born in Třebíč, March 7, 1889. Mr. Roth was a proxy (a procurator) of the General Slovak Credit Bank in Bratislava. The marriage was probably childless and was separated sometime between March 19, 1927 and October 20, 1931. Mrs. Rothová first lived with her parents when she returned from Bratislava, and from October 1931 on Bednářská street (now Jugoslávská street) 5. She worked as a modiste (she made hats). On May 24, 1933, she married in Brno, Mr. Robert Kulka, born August 30, 1890 in Olomouc. Mr. Kulka was a widower, a merchant and lived in Olomouc, street Pod lipami 15 -nIn November of 1937, Mr. and Mrs. Kulka and their son Tomas (Tomáš) moved from Olomouc, Palackého street 20 to Brno to the address Cejl street 83/85. Mr. Kulka worked as a clerk. From May 1941 to December 1942, when they were transported to the concentration camp in Terezín, the Kulks lived at Nová street (today Lidická street) 17.
Your sincerely
Veronika Wihodová”
Interesting to read that Robert was a widower. In every site that could be found, this is new information . As much has been researched, the only wife that was ever listed was Elsa. The information about his previous wife is very difficult, near impossible to find
Little Tomas Kulka was born on May 25, 1934 in Olomouc. Already, he was adored. His parents made sure he was well dressed, and had stuffed animals, which he loved. The little Tomas loved his parents. In 1937, Tomas’s maternal grandfather passed away. It was good-bye Olomouc and hello Brno, a place his mother knew well.
The Kulka’s took over the family shipping business in Brno. The family were successful in Brno and as it seemed by all accounts, Tomas was very happy there. His mother took him on playdates with other kids, and Tomas was growing up right before their eyes. According to research, Tomas developed like any other little toddler. His favorite toys were stuffed animals, which his mother adorned him with. He loved to talk and he was a curious child, who loved the outdoors. He loved animals. Sadly, it is not known if the Kulkas owned any pets. The Kulka’s lived comfortably in Brno. They were close to Tomas’s paternal grandmother. In the summertime, they would visit the other set of grandparents, who lived in Olomouc. Olomouc is only a fifty-six minute drive to Brno. But some might say it’ll take an hour.
Tomas turned five in 1939, the same year the Nazis came into town. Sadly, the Nazis barred little Tomas from entering Kindergarten, because he was Jewish. The little boy learned his ABC’s, colors, animals and other things five year-olds know in Kindergarten at home. According the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, stated that Robert’s brother and sister in law were able to make it Palstine, in the winter of 1940. But according to Geni.com, both of Robert’s siblings died during the Holocaust, so was there another sibling that was not accounted for? According to Geni.com, Robert’s siblings were Paula Freda and Friedrike Gans. Trying to locate Robert’s family has been difficult and it’s not easy to trace a family that was affected by the Holocaust directly, since many of the family tree’s are usually very small, since the majority of the family were murdered during the Holocaust. Tomas’s family is no different.
With the United States Holocaust Museum being the only viable source for Tomas’s family, there must be some relatives that live in Israel, but who knows what their names are and if they had a family tree? There are a few photos of Tomas, but not many. There are only three, which the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC owns.
During the occupation, the restrictions kept getting worse. As the story goes, Robert wanted to stay in Brno, because he thought the family business could be saved. If there was any chance of leaving the country, he missed the opportunity.
Elsa was teaching Tomas all she knew, while shielding him from the horrible world outside. The deportations began in 1941.
On January 2, 1940, the Kulkas had to leave their home. Not because they wanted to, because they were forced to. Tomas was only six. He brought some of his stuffed animals with him for the move. Where they moved to, is a difficult thing to trace. The Kulka’s business was also in trouble. Due to the Nazi’s rule of no Jews owning businesses or owning land, Elsa had to sell the business for two-hundred Czech crowns, which in American dollars, at least in those days, was ten dollars. Not a lot and it was painful for her to sell it. The business was over and her family were in trouble, and in jeopardy of being deported. Sadly, there were no options for hiding Tomas. Where could he go? Who would take this little boy? Robert ran to some friends and asked if they knew of a place they could hide their little six year-old? The friend ran to another friend and they got back with Robert. Sadly no one would take the innocent, and gentle little boy. The family were in such disarray, that all Tomas wanted to do was play with his animals, which brought him comfort.
Elsa searched for any organization or place where she could place Tomas. But Tomas was very close to his mother. He did not want to leave her. He was not a crybaby, but by some accounts, when he was left alone for a long time, he would cry.
In March of 1942, the Kulka’s complied with their summons to be deported. They were deported to Theresienstadt, or Terezin. Terezin will come up again soon.
Terezin was a ghetto, but it was a place that had a gray area. It was considered a concentration camp, but also a transit camp for Jews to be deported. Terezin was a former military fortress, converted into a ghetto-concentration camp.
The Jews of the Czech Republic were forced to live in horrible, almost unbearable conditions. Tomas turned seven in the ghetto and it was not the place he’d thought about celebrating his seventh birthday. Many seven year olds, at least now, are going to school, in second grade, and learning about fun stuff. Tomas, was not able to get an education, due to his race and ethnicity.
Terezin was located in Litoměřice, a town in the Ústí nad Labem Region. The problem with Terezin is that it was not deporting people fast enough and in 1942, they were deporting Jews to a dreadful place: Sobibor.
Sobibor was located in Poland, in the forest in the village of Sobibor. The purpose of Sobibor was killing as many Jews as they possibly could.
In 1942, Anne Frank, Otto Wolf and Moshe Flinker went into hiding. Sobibor is what they were hiding from. In their wildest imagination, they could not have realized the deadly nightmare that Sobibor was. If they had gone to the ghettos, especially Otto and his family, they would have been deported to Sobibor and they would have never been heard from again. But unlike the Wolf’s, who chose to go into hiding, the Kulka family were in jeopardy.
Sobibor was constructed in March of 1942.
According to historians, some have said this about the camp:
“The camp incorporated several pre-war buildings including a post office, a forester’s lodge, a forestry tower, and a chapel.The forester’s lodge became the camp administration building, while the post office was used as lodging for the SS (though not, as commonly reported, for the commandant)The former post office, located near the railroad tracks, still stands today. The SS adapted the preexisting railroad infrastructure, adding an 800-meter railroad spur that ended inside the camp. This third set of tracks allowed regular rail traffic to continue uninterrupted while the camp unloaded transports of new prisoners.Some building materials were supplied by the SS Central Construction Office in Lublin, while others were procured from local sawmills and brickworks, as well as from the remains of demolished houses of Jews.”
According to a historical document about Sobibor, the difference between Auschwitz’s gas chambers and the ones at Sobibor was the way they used the gas. The gas chambers at Sobibor were built to look like the gas chambers at Belzec, another extermination camp, where most of the Jews who were sent there, were in the ghettos in Poland.
Sobibor murdered 167,000 Jews.
Sobibor was no secret from the villagers, for they saw everything.
In May of 1942, deportations began to Sobibor. The first transport had Tomas on it.
The way that the family died is a little interesting. Tomas, from public knowledge, and according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Tomas was put on a transport to Sobibor.
On May 9, 1942, Tomas and his grandmother were murdered by gas. He was only seven years old.
The death of his parents is a little contradictory. From the research that was conducted, it was said, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, that both Robert and Elsa died in Ossowa Labor Camp. But, according to a Czech Holocaust Website, Holocaust.CZ, it stated that both Elsa and Robert were murdered at Sobibor as well. The records from Sobibor are now gone. They were destroyed, and it is unclear where his parents died, but whether they all died together, or apart, none of them survived. The story of his parent’s death at Ossowa says this : She was deported to the Ossowa forced labor camp in Ukraine on May 9, 1942 and died there within six months of being there. Tomas’s father, as it said, died there within six months.
Ossowa was a forced labor camp in Ukraine and many people died there within months of arriving. But another source says the family were all deported to Sobibor on May 9, 1942. The Czech site is a little confusing, when it said under both Tomas and Robert : “Sobibor, Ossowa”. Which place did they die at? Tomas was killed at Sobibor and that is public knowledge, but where his parents were murdered is a little difficult to place.
Tomas’s parents were not old either. Tomas’s mother was forty when she died and his father was fifty-two.
What happens to Tomas now? What is his lasting legacy? Are they any relatives? The relatives that hopefully survived are scattered.
Ilana Skutecky Breslaw donated three photos of Tomas to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She gave us only three photos of Tomas. If only there were more. Tomas was an adorable little boy.
Though Tomas has been dead for more than eighty-years now, there are people who remember him .
Rabbi Cutler said this on Tomas and his family:
“Tomas Kulka was the son of Elsa and Robert Kulka, who were married in 1933 in Brno in Moravia and moved to Olomouc, where Tomas was born. Following Elsa’s father’s death in 1937, the family moved to Brno where they took over the family shipping company. Just before Tomas’ fifth birthday the Nazis occupied Moravia. On March 31, 1942 Tomas and his family were sent to Theresienstadt. In May, he and his maternal grandmother were deported to Sobibor, where they were gassed upon arrival. Tomas was two weeks short of his eighth birthday. That same year, his parents died in the Ossova labor camp in Ukraine.
With the right amount of research, perhaps we could learn about Tomas’ favourite foods and whether he preferred sports or reading, whether he went to bed easily or gave his parents a hard time.
These are the details of the life of one person among six million. Such an approach honors the dead as they are recalled years after their deaths. The horrors and the actual lives lost become known to a new generation.
But we can also take a step further, moving into what I’ll call Applied History. Holocaust Education in this approach no longer becomes solely about learning what once happened, but also about how we stop it from ever happening again. The problem with this approach is that the moment Holocaust Education becomes about preventing another genocide is the moment we shift from remembering the victims as individuals to commodifying them as metaphors for a future atrocity. Tomas Kulka’s life is no longer remembered for its own purpose, he is no longer valued as an individual human with a name and a story; rather he becomes a useful prop, a bulwark against contemporary or future murderous fascism. He is there for us rather than us being there for him.”
Tomas’s spirit continues to be there within the walls of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and he continues to be the face of the one million Jewish children who were murdered.
Robert and Elsa were good parents, and from the research that was conducted, it was apparent that they gave Tomas all the love they could. Tomas was by all accounts, a very sweet and good boy. The only thing that remains of Tomas now, are three photographs.
Tomas would have been eighty-eight today had he survived. The regret of his parents not placing him in a good hiding spot was relevant when they were sent to the Terezin Ghetto. Sadly, they had not heard of OSE, a group that helped hide Jewish children and they could not find anyone to take this sweet little boy. Tomas faced the persecution head on. They were in the ghetto for a few months and it was hell. The lack of food and the lack of resources really took a toll on their health. Tomas was young and in the eyes of the Nazis, needed to be killed.
In the Ossowa forced labor camp, the Kulkas endured hard labor, little food and disease. It is very hard to imagine how they both perished at their ages.
Tomas was remembered by the WJC- World Jewish Congress:
“Tomas Kulka was a Jewish boy who lived in Moravia, present-day Czech Republic. In 1939, when he was 5 years old, the Nazis occupied Moravia. Because Tomas was Jewish, he was not allowed to attend school. On March 31, 1942 Tomas and his family were sent to the transit camp of Theresienstadt. That same year his parents died in the Ossova labor camp in Ukraine. In May, he and his maternal grandmother were deported to Sobibor, where they were gassed upon arrival. I only pray that his grandmother managed to stay with him to the end. Tomas was two weeks short of his eighth birthday.”
Tomas’s little voice will forever be loud to all who hear it.
KATE’S INTERLUDE (II)
2010
Tomas Kulka’s name appears to me in a search on the USHMM. ORG website. With this innocent little boy, I felt like I needed to give him some attention. Between school and my work at the Dallas Holocaust Museum, I wanted to share his story. Tomas’s story was very short, but I tried to ask the museum for any other information.
They gave me the same information that was on the site’s page on him. Tomas’s voice, like Otto, was yelling and to me, it was loud and clear. The little Czech boy stole my heart and as you can imagine why. The little boy with the most adorable smile, and in his little lederhosen, it was something I could not ignore. At the time, I was learning new names of victims and survivors alike. The first time I ever heard Tomas Kulka’s name was in 2010.
The little seven-year old boy’s death did not sit right for me. I did not like how he died so young. Why did they kill him? What harm would he have created or done? Nothing. He was just an innocent little boy that was murdered for no real reason at all. I needed to investigate. At the time, I did not know what else to look up, since I was interested in this little boy. I contacted the museum at Terezin and they said that they had one record of him, but it was just a record of his deportation to Sobibor. Sobibor itself does not exist anymore, and there are no records of the Jews that died there. The body of Tomas was dissolved into ashes and he is now part of the ground at Sobibor.
Sobibor is in Poland. The camp itself has been destroyed and with that, went all their records.
People like to think that the Holocaust was not proplery documented. It was. The Nazis kept track of who was deported, and where they died.
The problem with some of these camps is that some of their records were destroyed in the process of destroying evidence of the camps. Anne Frank’s records at Bergen-Belsen were also destroyed, so that is why there is no known date of when she died. Tomas was the same way. He probably was documented, but since Sobibor is gone, and sadly, when I asked the Polish military archives for any Polish archives, they all met me with the same disappointment. Tomas was not documented.
Trying to find any records that were of Tomas from Terezin, was also difficult. Proven that I needed more.
2018
I was asked my Alma Mater, The University of Houston Clear- Lake to write an article on Holocaust Remberance Day -January 27. In the Jewish tradition, we have two Holcoaust Remembrance days. Jan. 27, 1945, the liberation of Auschwitz and in April for Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.
I was honored and I chose to write about Petr Ginz and Tomas Kulka. This was the first time people had heard of their names.
2022
After I published Among the Many, I made it my mission to write more about Tomas.
Tomas was someone who was murdered simply on the fact because he was Jewish. This, of course, never sat right with me.
What kind of research was I able to do? Well, knowing my success with archives with Otto’s story, I was able to connect with the archives in Brno, where the Kulka’s lived and there was some record of them there. But trying to do more research on Tomas’s short life has been difficult, especially when it seems like he didn’t even exist in archives or records.
What happened to those records in Terezin? I’ve done all the research I can to try to find those documents, and they are near impossible to find.
Tomas Kulka, if you search him, many the websites say the same thing: “He was murdered at Sobibor”. He was murdered at Sobibor and it was apparent that is what defined him. Only how he died, not that he was a real person or he was an innocent little boy. He was just among the many Jews who were murdered.
As I searched more for information on his parents, it was proving to be difficult to find anything, other than they were also killed during the Holocaust. I couldn’t find anything about their childhoods or anything like that. Only that Tomas was their only child and they were separated from their son when they died.
The main question I had was, did they have any living relatives? I searched Israeli archives and did not find anything pertaining to them. From the United States Holocaust Museum ‘s website, “Robert’s brother and sister in-law managed to immigrate to Palestine”. In the 1940’s, some Jews were able to immigrate to Israel. To me, Robert made a horrendous decision to stay in the Czech Republic. I did some research on Robert and found that he did have two siblings, but I didn’t find a brother’s name, only what appeared to be two sisters? I don’t know if this was accurate, but I had reached out to the Olomouc archives in hopes I’d find my answer (still waiting to hear back!).
Elsa on the other hand, some information was found and I was able to find a few things about her, but still needed more. Shar
The one thing that I wish I could acquire was Tomas’s birth record. They did not have that on file and I’m sure it was destroyed.
The thing that proved he was once alive. While most seven year-old’s are learning about numbers, beginning to play sports like little league or they like video games, little Tomas was fearing for his life, but he did not realize why all this was occurring to him. When I look at the children that were murdered, include Tomas, I find that I am wanting to keep them alive as much as I can.
Like the other Czech Jews that I’ve come to study, I find that many of them had very different lives and with the opportunities to find information about their lives and in Tomas’s case, short life.
Unfortunately, I was not able to track down anyone who knew the Kulka’s personally, only was able to find some information on what Tomas liked, like his stuffed animals, which he so adored.
At least I was able to know what he looked like, that was a plus. A lot of the Jewish children murdered, did not have any photographic evidence of them. Tomas has three photos of him. Just three (at least three public ones). All of the photos were taken before he was deported.
I hope one day, I can find some relatives of his .
