Tomas
Kulka, a Jewish boy shown here at age three, 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. The city Olomouc is, after Prague, the second most
historical city in The Czech Republic, the gateway to the
Jeseniky mountains. A city, which is referred to as The
Pearl on the Green and The Heart of the Haná
Region. A perfect idyll.
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. Because Tomas was Jewish, he was not allowed to
attend school. On March 31, 1942 Tomas and his family were
sent to the KZ camp 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.
The
deathcamp Sobibor
operated from May 1942 until October 1943 for only one
purpose: to kill as many Jews as quickly as possible.
Sobibor`s gas chambers killed an approximate total of
260,000 Jews. Transports arrived by rail, and prisoners
were taken immediately toward the gas chambers. Only 47
managed to survive Sobibor and give evidence of the
existence of the death camp.
Before
the war ended the killing installations at Sobibor were
destroyed and the area planted over with trees ...
The Sobibor Site today
