Bielcza Grave of the murdered Roma
the village Bielcza
Gypsies were settled in this village before World War I
and it was right at the end of the 19th century when the Gypsies - Calderash Roma started to come,
those who came from Hungarian region
and they stayed in this village, they were
welcomed really friendly by local Roma,
so they regularly came back after several years.
And interesting is that someone from Calderash Roma
accepted typical Polish farmer's surname Kwiek.
It was popular in this neighborhood
and over time the surname Kwiek became very elite,
because the members of Kwiek family started to proclaim themselves kings.
Maybe in 1920 or 1921 first such a Roma from Bielcze
proclaimed himself king of all Gypsies, all Gypsies in the world.
We can say, it was grotesque situation a bit,
but one of very famous prewar kings came from right from Bielcze,
King Michal II Kwiek.
When the war broke out, Germans forced
a group of Gypsies - the Kwieks to settle here.
They simply detained them because they were nomadic Gypsies
and they lived on the margin of the village in the barn of one reeve.
It was a group of 40 or more Gypsies.
One day in 1942 Germans ringed this barn and shot everyone.
But not all who lived there,
because some of them, mostly men, were working on the railway at that time.
Later, many years later, I met in Germany in Göttingen
one of those who saved themselves -
Stefan Kwiek.
He told me that, when he was a little boy,
his mum told him to go to beg something to the village.
He went
and when he returned after all day with the food he begged from people,
all his family had already been murdered.
But he later saved himself somehow.
In the 1950s, local people initiated to
exhume Roma from this part of the village and then buried them
on so-called Biedacz.
As it's seen, this grave is maintained by local people.
The family of these Kwieks is no longer living here, but people keep the grave in the good condition.
Here is written that it is a mass grave of Gypsies,
the surnames are not listed.
But I know which families they were, because
I was searching it in the archives.
After the war the testimonies of various crimes were written
and there are several reports of residents in the archives.
Firstly, they talk about what they
remembered.
Secondly, one of the rescued Kwieks also gave such a testimony
before the German Nazi Crime Research Commission
and thanks to his report we know the surnames and relatives of these people,
because he named, this was my aunt, who had two kids,
brother-in-law, who also had some kids.
So, based on this testimony, we can learn
which families they were and how they were related,
but they all were Calderash
and they all were from the Kwiek family.
Here we have very interesting and
very nice way of memorializing of the drama of slayed Gypsies.
There is the board on the church wall placed by the residents in 1973.
All inhabitants of this village who died during the war are listed here.
They died in concentration camps or during the bombing,
or in the period of local executions, in the period of war as soldiers
There are listed names, surnames and years of their life.
Although people didn't know much about Gypsies,
it is very nice that
among all these inhabitants there are
also mentioned 41 Gypsies of Kwiek family
aged 5 month to 69 years.
So, the residents had to know these Gypsies quite closely
during the time they lived here,
as they knew how old they were and that they were the Kwieks.
Transcription: Lucia Němcová Corrections: Zdeněk Kovář, Vojtech Sloboda Translation: Zuzana Závadská