Makovský František & Makovská Anna

Makovský, František Makovská, Anna František Makovský was born in 1897 to a poor farming family with five children. Like his older brothers, at the age of 14 he was sent to Germany to be trained as a tailor. Between the two wars, František served in the Czech gendarmerie in Carpathian Ruthenia, the most eastern part of the Czechoslovak Republic. Following the annexation of this area to Hungary, František returned to his hometown. In 1942 he was posted as a senior gendarme to the Theresienstadt ghetto. František’s wife and their four children remained in their family home in Korouhev (Bohemia). Many ghetto inmates quickly discovered that František had a good heart and was a Czech patriot. Using his position, František disposed of incriminatory documents, thus preventing the severe punishment of inmates by members of the ss. Milos Eisner and his friends who worked in the “Spedicia” department that transferred supplies from Bohusovice to the ghetto were among those whom he saved from severe punishment. On one spring night in 1943, they had been transferring sugar on a train wagon. Eisner and his friends had made a hole in the bottom of the wagon and 50 kilograms of the sugar had been emptied from it. The theft was discovered and the group accused of stealing. The Gestapo directed František to investigate the case. He managed to clear them from suspicion using the argument that the train remained in Bohušovice station for three hours with no guard. František’s high position also allowed him to remove a few of the inmates from the transports heading to Auschwitz, and these inmates owe František their lives. František was also helpful as an intermediary between the inmates and their families on the outside. The main courier transferring the letters to their destination was František’s wife, Anna, who also bought food on the black market and sent it to the ghetto, ostensibly to František. The inmate Julius Tausig was employed in the ghetto as a postman for the specialCzech gendarmerie unit that was in charge of keeping order in the ghetto. He recalled that from September 1942, František had started to receive a great number of food packages that he could not possibly consume himself. Tausig soon discovered that František was distributing the food to the inmates. He even used to purchase additional food on the black market in the adjacent Bohušovice. František’s colleague started to suspect the big packages that were arriving for František every week. On September 15, 1943, František was arrested and taken to a Gestapo interrogation in Kladno, where he was imprisoned. He was later transferred as an inmate to the Small Fortress in Terezín. Soon after František’s arrest, the Gestapo from Pardubice made a rigorous search of František’s house in Korouhev. At that time, Anna had only four inmates’ letters hidden there. The letters were not found but from the time of František’s arrest, Anna and her children confronted enormous financial difficulties. The end of the war brought with it liberation not only for the Jewish inmates but also for František. That said, though, soon after František’s release from prison he was arrested again and was accused of collaboration with the Nazis. Thirty-five of the many inmates that František had helped then signed a petition for his release. The petition succeeded and he was set free. On June 2, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized František Makovský as Righteous Among the Nations. On October 8, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Anna Makovská as Righteous Among the Nations.