The Vohryzeks on a trip in the Tatra Mountains

Our relatives, the Vohryzeks, on a trip in the Tatra Mountains, posing by a waterfall on the Studeny Stream close to Hrebionok. On the left is my father's sister, Bedriska Vohryzkova, nee Munkova, on the far right is her husband, Vilem Vohryzek and standing in front of them are two sisters, the younger is Helena and the older is Hana.

The Vohryzeks lived on a farm in the Sudetenland named Doubravice. They got it because of my father's brother, Josef Munk, who'd been a Legionnaire in Russia during World War I.

When after World War I land reforms were taking place, and large estates belonging to the nobility were being sold off, legionnaires had priority and thanks to this my uncle could afford to go in half and half on a large farming estate with the Vohryzeks. Both families were very interrelated, because Uncle Josef Munk married Mr. Vilem Vohryzek's sister, Marta Vohryzkova. The Vohryzeks belonged to the "better" landowners back then, they used to ride in a carriage to Teplice and their daughters belonged to the so-called rural cavalry. The rural cavalry was this group of, as they would have said back then - Czech village kulaks. It was a big honor to get into the rural cavalry. They took part in all significant celebrations and had their own riding horses.

When in 1938 the Germans annexed the Sudetenland, and expelled our relatives from there, the Vohryzeks then lived with us in Brandys and the Munks somewhere in Prague. I suspect that all our relatives that came to Prague from the Sudetenland were among the first to be selected for the transports, which didn't go to Terezin, but straight to Lodz or to Estonia. Among them was Hana Vohryzkova, who was married to Hugo Stein. They both died in Lodz and were already declared dead in 1942. The remainder of the Vohryzek family, Uncle Vilem, Aunt Bedriska and their younger daughter Helena left on a transport, at first to Terezin, and then to Auschwitz, where they died in 1944.

Photos from this interviewee